Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 38

Old Habits Are Hard To Break (But Not Impossible)

When I made the announcement that I was going to go back to writing for passion and that I wasn’t going to stress over having a new book out all the time, I had no idea it was going to take months to fully embrace the new direction in my writing life. The greatest battle we face really is in the mind.

By changing my path, I was essentially letting go of a dream. But that’s okay. I’m a firm believer that when God closes a door, He opens a window. Sometimes He’ll put me at the end of my rope, so I can see where He’s leading me. I’ve always been the kind of person who doesn’t get a hint. People need to come out and tell me exactly what they want. I think my husband is a lot better at picking out subtleties than I am. I guess that’s why this writing to passion thing (and everything that would follow in line after it) has been harder to properly embrace.

After taking the advice of the author who made the two You Tube videos I included in the last post, I gave myself permission to do things I haven’t allowed in a long time. For example, I didn’t feel like writing on Tuesday. On Tuesday, I felt like walking. So I got off the computer and went on the treadmill for two hours. Then I didn’t write after that like I normally would. I’m now stopping writing when I no longer feel like doing it. My word count average has gone from 3500 (when I was pushing myself) to 2000. And now I’m doing about 3-4 days a week instead of the full 5.

I don’t know what the future of publishing looks like. Things are so different now than they were when I put my books on Amazon and Smashwords in 2009. Now it’s a pay-to-play game. If you don’t have the money to put into ads or other ways to get exposure, it’s hard to get visibility. I’m not complaining about it. I’m just being realistic. The landscape isn’t what it used to be. It doesn’t do anyone any good to live in denial.

Since things have changed, old habits need to change, too. I’m still learning what those changes are for me. I’m not interested in playing the pay-to-play game. I’m not interested in writing novellas in order to get something out every month. (I did consider it. I even started a story that was meant to be a novella, and it’s already at 26,000 words with a lot more to go.) I am interested in doing a short story here and there for fun, but I don’t want to do that all the time. I’m not interested in spending most of my time on social media because, as an introvert, that drains me. I can only handle social media in small doses. That’s one of the reasons I don’t email right away. I need time to recharge my batteries.

All I really want to do is write and publish my books. That’s it. So that’s what I’m going to do. I don’t know how often a new book will be out. I plan to push back at least one pre-order date as we get later into the year since I’m not going to strain myself to get the book written by a certain time. If the day comes when I feel like God is telling me to stop writing, I’ll stop. I don’t feel He’s leading me that way at this time. I’m going to leave the details up to Him. I don’t know what’s beyond the window He opened for me, but I’m going to find out because I’m no longer going to try to open the door that’s closed.

Shifting Things Around

The past couple of weeks have been a busy time as I tried to rearrange my goals and writing schedule to accommodate them. The other day, I got links from a good author friend on two excellent videos.

1. This is a good one on focusing in on goals in a way that won’t get overwhelming. It’s aimed at writers, but honestly, it could work for any goals.

2. The other video was on handling burnout. Again, it’s primarily aimed at writers, but I can see how the symptoms of burnout and ways to overcome it could work for other areas, too. Writers aren’t the only ones who get burned out.

*******

I took both videos to heart and worked on how I can best modify things I have control over. Trying to work with things I can’t control is pointless. This is what I’ve been trying to do for the past 2.5 years, and it hasn’t worked. So now I’m working with goals I do have control over.

Regarding the 90 Day Plan:

Now, the author in the videos does a board. I like having something printed out in paper form that I created in my Word program. I like being able to cross things out as I finish them. I know an author who likes putting everything in a planner.

The bottom line is to use whatever method best motivates you. Seeing stuff on a board and moving them around wouldn’t motivate me. Also, I don’t like to list out every little thing on a sticky note. I like to have everything on one sheet of paper that I can glance at. Otherwise, I get overwhelmed. So this is a flexible plan.

If anyone’s interested, these are the three things I came up with for my 90 Day Plan.

Things I’ve decided to change in how I do things. I’m hoping these will help eliminate burnout and renew my focus on writing for passion.

I log in to work on writing, publishing, and/or marketing Monday through Friday from 8am to 2pm. Wednesdays will end at 1pm due to kids’ early out from school. (Note: I do household chores during this time, too.) Once the 1-2pm mark hits, I quit no matter how much I did or didn’t do.
Once You’re Next (my YA thriller under my pen name) is done, I’m going back to working on three books at a time. I’m also lowering my word count per book.
At least three days a week, I will write 250 – 1000 words in each the book for the day. I was making myself do 3,000 words total Monday through Friday. That seemed to be pushing myself too hard.
Monday through Friday, I walk for 30-60 minutes on the treadmill. (I finally broke down and bought one since it’s cold in Montana too many months in the year.)
Saturday and Sunday is for other activities. It’s time I got back to reading more and doing other hobbies I haven’t done in ages.

Regarding my publishing schedule:

I want to be three months ahead of schedule. Part of  my problem is that I’ve been writing, editing, and publishing as quickly as I could. I published back all of my pre-order dates so far out that I hope to be able to have every book done three months before I publish it. That way, I hope to be more relaxed about things.
I will no longer put up pre-orders until I finish the book. I’ve finally learned my lesson on this one. Pre-orders are nice in that they give me time to put all of my ducks in a row, so to speak.
I’m not going to stress how often I publish books. When they’re done, they’ll get ready for publication.
I’m also only taking on stories I want to write. I’m hoping this will get me out of the writing to market mindset.

One final thought on the You Tube video on avoiding burnout that I think is important to mention:

The author made an excellent point that when setting goals, one of the best things to aim for is how you want to feel. I’d never thought of things that way before. How I feel is something I can control. It’s something we can all control. The idea is to think of how you want to feel and then take the steps necessary to get there.

For example, my goal is to feel relaxed while writing. Since publishing eight books in 2019 would stress me out, I lower the number to six books. I can comfortably do six books that range between 50,000 to 70,000 words. I’m not focused on how the books will sell, who’ll like them, or anything else I can’t control. I’m just focused on the thing I can do: write.

I don’t know if something in this post can help, but I figured I’d pass this along in case something in here will work for you. I think part of living a hectic life is trying to figure out a way to best organize our time so we don’t stress ourselves out, whether we’re writing or doing something else.

 

 

The Road to Passionate Writing isn’t Linear

Note: This is another “write to market” post. If you don’t want to read it, skip this one.

Real life story that does lead into the theme of this post:

Yesterday morning, I woke up and discovered mold that had been sitting along the hallway wall for months. (The bathroom shower is on the other side of this hallway wall.) I have no idea how long it was sitting there, quietly growing and spreading. It was hidden by some shoes and some towels. (We had shelves that were on this wall. Needless to say, those shelves are gone now.) I called a handyman I know, and he tore into the wall so we could see how much damage we were looking at. In short, we’re going to need to remove the entire wall and put in a new shower. If anyone wonders, the way to kill mold is by bleach. But this wall was too far gone. There was no saving it, and the shower and tub were a part of the damages in this whole thing.

So here’s how this ties into theme of the post:

Sometimes there’s something wrong within us, and, like mold, it quietly works in the dark. It’s often something that is at work for a long period of time, which makes us unaware that it’s even there. This morning as I was spraying bleach to kill off any remaining mold, it occurred to me that the problem I’ve been experiencing with my writing has been bothering me since last August 2017 (yes, I mean 2017). I know it was that month because it was the first time I got completely wiped out, and I’ve been limping along ever since. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Last week, I actually contacted a couple of close author friends and confessed I was seriously consider quitting. This isn’t the first time I’ve wanted to quit. I’ve been on Amazon and Smashwords since 2009. There have been other times when I’ve wanted to throw in the towel and give up. It’s not easy being a writer. I bet it’s not easy being anyone who is creating something.

When you create something, a lot of people find ways to criticize it. There is no story that pleases everybody. That is an impossible mission. That’s why I don’t believe in revising a story to death. No matter how much you go through a story, it’ll never be perfect. On the flip side, you do want to write the best story you possibly can. You don’t want to rush through the story and throw it out there.

The rushing part is what I’ve been guilty of for the past 2.5 years. I bought into the “hurry up and get another book out” mindset in my pursuit to keep making the same amount of money I did back in 2015. I realized I could no longer take my time writing a book and expect to make the same amount of money I was up to that point.  I know a lot of it has to do with the supply of books going up. Authors who started out in 2009-2011 like I did were used to taking our time writing books and yielding good results from it. We suddenly found ourselves in the hamster wheel I’ve also discussed on this blog. And a lot of us have been trying to keep up. We also had to learn to write to market in order to appeal to the majority of people, which is another thing I did.

Apparently, just getting out of the wheel wasn’t enough for me. The mold within my own writing life was still there. I feel like I’ve been playing whack-a-mole in nailing down the source of the mold. If I can rip out the mold, I can stop the damage from spreading. My last couple of books pretty much bombed. I only have one book this year that sold decently. Now, I knew the pen name books weren’t going to do well because no one knows who that person is. But my romances had way underperformed, and it did get worse in the summer, which (from what I heard) is the same time frame a lot of other authors got hit with lower-than-average sales. So it wasn’t just me during the summer months.

So then what? Well, authors run to educational resources (books, videos, courses, podcasts) to learn how to improve sales. I’m not immune to any of this. But I found the more I focused on this stuff, the more stressed out I was getting, and I’m sure that helped the mold in myself grow faster. I realize all of these educational resources are there to help authors, and they do have a benefit. However, the advice in these recourses doesn’t work for every author who follows it. I have a really nice author friend who has been writing awesome books this entire time (we started out at the same time), and her sales aren’t what they should be. According to the advice of this latest You Tuber, my author friend should be making $10,000 a month. But I know my friend isn’t making that much, and she’s followed every piece of advice that this You Tuber said she should do.

I’m at the point where I think marketing advice is like throwing spaghetti up on a wall. Maybe it worked for THAT author, but it’s not something that is guaranteed to work. But a lot of other authors will blame the someone like my author friend for not following the advice better. And this contributes to “mold” that builds up within a writer. I know it contributes to my own mold. I can’t control what happens if I do X, Y, or Z. All I can control is the story I write. These marketing people make it sound like authors can control what happens after a story is published, but that’s not true. Authors can try different tactics to get noticed, but we can’t control who is out there buying our work, if they even buy it at all. And that’s a very frustrating and discouraging feeling. If people don’t buy our work, we assume it’s because the story isn’t good. Of course, this isn’t true. I’ve come across a lot of excellent stories that don’t sell well.

Is all of this rambling getting somewhere?

Yes, actually, it is. Last week, I hit rock bottom. For the first time this morning, I saw the “mold” in my own writing life. Some people will say the answer is to stop writing for a while. I thought that at first, too, but writing is not my problem. When I write, I feel a lot better. I did a couple of days off and felt extremely frustrated. I went ahead and wrote, and I felt calm and in control over things again. But, it really does depend on what I’m writing and why I’m writing it.

My problem began when I started writing to market. I was also rushing books out, but it was the writing to market thing that did me in. From 2007-2015, I wrote what I was interested in. That meant I loved every story I was writing. It wasn’t stuff everyone loved. Some people who loved my earlier books said they didn’t like the recent ones, but I loved them. Over these past three years, I’ve only been passionate about a handful of the books I published. I enjoyed every book I wrote, but there’s a difference between enjoying something and being passionate about something. Passion means I want to go back and reread my own books. Enjoyment is okay but not something I care to go back to.

So I had to admit something that’s not easy: I write to a niche market.

The books I’m passionate about are not the same as what the majority of readers out there seem to like. I like to mix a Christian perspective with sex in a marriage relationship. A lot of people don’t like that. They prefer to do one or the other. So authors who want to reach the largest market end up choosing which side to go on. It’s hard for me to find a Christian romance that has love scenes between  husband and wife. This has been true in traditional publishing and indie publishing. Combing both things is not popular. I tried breaking out of the niche by being more secular in my work, but I didn’t feel fulfilled doing that. In fact, I think that’s what God’s will is for me: to write books that glorify Him in and out of the bedroom. I believe sex is a beautiful act between a husband and wife. I don’t think it’s dirty. I’ve been married for 18 years now. I have four children. I still have sex with my husband. I’m not ashamed of it, and I see no reason why my characters should be.

A sex scene isn’t just about sex. Sex is only the physical actions. There are things happening between the characters that are much more than physical. You have emotional completion on an individual level, and you have a spiritual bonding where the two become one. Sex is a very layered event. And it complements what happens outside the bedroom. What happens outside the bedroom is just as important as what happens in it. This is why I added sex scenes to my romances early on. I felt that Christian romances that were clean missed out on the opportunity to show the additional layer within a marital relationship. I still feel that way. I don’t see why a Christian perspective needs to exclude the sexual part of a marital relationship. So I mix the two, and because of that, I will end up upsetting people from both sides of the aisle. Most of the Christian romance crowd isn’t happy with me, and most of the non-Christian romance crowd isn’t happy with me, either. So how can I expect to appeal to the largest audience out there? It’s not realistic.

Looking back on the years I’ve been writing romance, I believe the mold started to develop inside of me when I decided money was more important than doing what God wanted me to do. That’s not easy for me to admit, but how can you solve a problem unless you point out the cause? Like the pipe from the shower in the bathroom, my decision started out as s trickle. Easy to ignore. Not doing a lot of damage. But over time, the leak got bigger and stronger. I think it went full blast in August of 2017. I think that was the point where I could no longer ignore it.

While I was writing to market, I was removing as much of me as possible because I had stopped writing for myself. I think that’s what passion is. Passion is writing the story that has layers and layers of things that mean something to the author who writes it. Writing to market removes those layers because the books are tailored directly to the largest number of readers in a given genre. You can have themes and such, but they are going to be society’s important themes, not an author’s.

I’ll give you a couple of examples of what I mean. I’ve done some books with a spiritual theme in them. Eye of the Beholder is actually about how Christ loves the Church. His love makes the Church beautiful, just as Dave Larson’s love made Mary beautiful. His Redeeming Bride and Loving Eliza both have the spiritual theme of Christ’s love removing all of the sin from a person’s life so that there’s no blemish in them. (In other words, Christ offers another chance in life.) I didn’t set out to put those themes into the books. They just developed. I don’t put in spiritual themes in all of my books. Some books are just supposed to be for fun. Books like “A Bride for Tom” and “The Wrong Husband” are just comedies that were meant to make me laugh. I love a variety of books.

The mold in my life came from fear of putting those themes into my work. They are my themes. They are my interests. Sometimes I want to do something with a spiritual theme, and sometimes I just want to sit back and laugh. Either way, I put pieces of me into everything I was writing. This is why I was passionate about writing them.

Back then, I also wrote the story that most interested me at the time. I didn’t worry about what number I was in for a series. I just wrote the character’s story that I was dying to write. This is why the Nebraska Series was writing out of order. (Eye of the Beholder, Book 4, was the first book written.) The Virginia Series was written out of order, too. (An Inconvenient Marriage was written first, and that’s Book 3.) Everyone seems to want books written in order. So I started forcing myself to write them in order, and I think some of those books were forced before they should have been written. I don’t know if I’ll go back to writing out of order, but if I do, I’m not labeling the books as a series until the whole thing is done. We’ll have to see how things proceed.

I’m going to stop writing books according to other people’s interest. I’m going to only write the ones that interest me the most.  Fortunately, I am interested in the current books I have in progress. The Imperfect Husband is a comedy, but it also has a spiritual theme, “When God closes a door, He opens a window.” In other words, God’s best often comes in ways we don’t expect. We just have to be open to His leading. Kidnapping the Viscount is just a fun comedy. I’m working on both at the same time, and I find the variety helps me stay creative. I’m also working on the YA psychological thriller to give myself a complete break from romance. I’ve always found variety to be the key to staying creative. This is why I don’t focus on one genre all the time like some authors do. I know “smart” authors do that, but that would be the worst thing I could do, especially being as weak as I am at the moment. Mold has a way of weakening things. The wall in the hallway was soft when I was cleaning it with bleach. I felt the wall give under the pressure of my fingers, and I wasn’t even scrubbing. That’s similar to what’s happened with my creativity.

In conclusion:

Removing the mold and putting in the new shower and wall will be a lot easier for the house than removing the source of the mold within my own writing life. I’ve spent the last thirteen months in the middle of a storm where I knew something was wrong but not knowing what it was. What I didn’t realize until this morning was that the last thirteen months have really been a blessing in disguise. I’m finding my way back to the stories I really want to write. One might think this would be easy. I thought so, too, when I dropped out of the rat race earlier this year, but it’s not easy. I have to fight against all of the negative thoughts within myself and the negative comments from others that keep creeping up around me.

So I tell myself to be patient. The mold didn’t get here overnight. It’s not going to go away overnight, either. This is going to be something I’ll struggle with for some time. Progress is not going to be a straight line. But then, the mold that was growing on the wall behind the shower wasn’t linear, either, and it’s requiring the handyman to cut out the entire wall and remove the tub and shower to rip it all out. I am confident that in the end, all of the frustration, pain, and work will be worth it when everything is cleaned up.

Stuff I’m Working On

Quick Note about Google Play

First of all, I got over half of my books up on Google Play now. I have about 20 more to put up there. So things are moving along. I hope to add the Google Play links to the books on my pages where I list out the books by series. For example, here is the page for the Chance at Love Series. Under each book, I list out the retailers and link to them.

Where to Find A Quick Link to All of My Books

You can find all of my books by going directly to the  “My Books” tab at the top of this blog. (It’s under the blog header that has my name and the images of the bride and groom.) If you click on the series you’re interested in, it should take you directly to those books in that series, and the links to those books will be there.

I currently have 80 individual books and two boxed sets completed. Five other books are in pre-order status. (I have a couple of shorts that I didn’t bother linking to. There are seven of those.) If you want the complete list of everything, here’s the link.

This is why I don’t lump all of my books with their links together on one page. It would be too messy. I find it easier to divide them up according to genre and then series, even if there is some overlap between the characters and the series they show up in. I don’t know if it drives people crazy that I’ll bring a character into a different series, but I love doing things this way because I’ll never ever have to say good-bye to them. I get to continue on with their happy endings.

Now for stuff I’m writing…

As of yesterday, I have returned to writing. I had been working on the preliminary edits for One Enchanted Evening before sending it out to my wonderful editing team. I have set the release date for January 6 on that book. I’m planning to dedicate December to doing my publisher duties. Until then, I’m strictly writing, with a little bit of the publishing side since I will be sending out finished stories to my editing team.

The Imperfect Husband is about 1/4 of the way done.

This is Book 4 in the Misled Mail Order Brides Series. (It will complete the series.)

[image error]

I just hit Chapter 7 in this one. I’m at the point where Ben is about to meet Annabelle disguised as a woman. I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I came up with the main plot for this book. I know I’ve done a woman-dressed-as-a-man book. It played a prominent theme in An Unlikely Place for Love and a minor one in Isaac’s Decision, but I have never had a man disguise himself as a woman. I’ve been wanting to do this setup since I wrote An Unlikely Place for Love in 2008. Sometimes ideas take years (in this case, a decade) to come to fruition. I just need to find the right characters and the right setup to fit it into the plot.

For anyone who is wondering, The stuff with Mark’s lie that he told in The Rejected Groom (Book 2) will finally be resolved in this book. I wasn’t able to resolve it in The Perfect Wife (Book 3) because the dynamics between Mark and Tony just didn’t align right. With Annabelle being the little sister they are both interested in protecting, I can finally address that here. So hang tight. The entire series hasn’t been finished yet. Sometimes it takes a good portion of a series to resolve an issue. This is one such case. One reason I love series is because they allow for character development.

Shane’s Deal is about 1/4 of the way done, too.

This is Book 4 in the Montana Collection. (It will complete the series.)

[image error]

Sometimes it takes me years to get to a book I want to write featuring certain characters. This was one of those books. I don’t want to rush any character into a story until that story is ready. I have a few characters I want to write about in the future, but I’m not going to do that until the time is right. Otherwise, the story is going to come off as forced and bland. I’ve started a couple of these, and I had to quit them. If I can’t get excited about the story, then it’s not worth finishing.

I’m really enjoying this story. I started it with the idea it was going to be a 25,000 or 30,000. Well, I just hit 18,700 today, and there’s plenty more to go. These characters have more to their story than a quick read. They have another 30,000 to 40,000 words to go. When the story is done, the characters will let me know, but I can feel this is at least a 50,000 word book.

Kidnapping the Viscount is still in the beginning stages.

This is Book 5 in the Marriage by Fate Series. (It will complete the series.)

[image error]

I’m going to wrap things up with the subplot I’ve had going about Lady Eloise and the group (Ladies of Grace). The overall subplot has been the destruction of Lady Eloise. Earlier on, I had intended for Ladies of Grace to fall apart, but then I liked some of the other members of the group (like Miss Webb) and decided to get the group back into good standing. All I need to do a this point is to show how the members of the group override Miss Wilmington’s influence.

Taking a Break From Publishing Until January

Note: This is only a break from publishing. I still plan to be writing during this time.

For the past couple of months, I’ve been unable to shake off the feeling of being overwhelmed. No matter what I tried to adjust around my daily life, I couldn’t seem to work my way out of it. And then it occurred to me when I finished the first draft of One Enchanted Evening. I haven’t had a break from publishing books on a regular basis since 2015. And I’m exhausted. I need a vacation from publishing.

The writing part is no longer an issue. I got my enthusiasm back. The business angle, however, has taken its toll. I don’t have an assistant. I do all of this myself. In the past, I used to just write books, and then I published them once they were ready for the public. I didn’t plan out my publishing schedule.

Here’s what goes into the publishing side of things for each book:

If making a pre-order, then do that before or after book is completed
Create a Booklaunch page which gives information about the book with retailer links (useful if there’s have a pre-order), but this gives one link to send everyone to so it’s convenient
Hiring a cover artist or making the cover myself
Setting up the editors and beta readers to read over the book and working on an agreed-to-schedule
Doing blog posts and other social media stuff to let people know the book is coming
Making the email that will go out on release day
Making the special scene or epilogue to go with the new release to send out to email list (some authors do something like this, and I’m one of them). This takes a week for me to write since I have trouble coming up with this.
Work over final edits handed in by editors and beta readers
Format ebook
Upload ebook and fill out description page on retailer website and then check to make sure all of the ebook is there, and I upload on Amazon, Smashwords, and Google Play
Check each retailer (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play, Smashwords) and adding links to my blog (on my book page) and Booklaunch page (I update my website later)
Announce new release in the email, on my regular blog, my monthly blog, on social media, update my website, etc
Hire out for someone to format paperback or do it myself
Work on paperback cover or hire cover artist to do this
Upload the paperback book to Kindle Direct Publishing (used to be CreateSpace, but it’s all transferring to KDP now)
Buy paperback copy and check for errors
Buy paperback copies for beta readers

Anyway, today as I was thinking over having to go through all of that to get One Enchanted Evening out in October, I realized I didn’t have the energy to do all of that. I need to take a step back and give it all a rest.

I think the body gives us clues when it’s time to slow down. I don’t want to run myself ragged. While I’ve been doing good with getting regular sleep, avoiding bad foods, and spending time with my family on the weekends, I haven’t given myself enough time for exercise or to do anything for personal enjoyment (like reading some books that have been sitting on my shelf for the past year, or working on crossword puzzles, or just watching TV to let my mind decompress).

My goal is to get things going on the publishing side in December to get One Enchanted Evening ready for January. That allows me two and a half months to take some of the pressure off.

I’m afraid if I keep pushing myself on this publishing side, I’ll crash and burn. I just want to sit back and write for a while. So I’ll still be busy, but it’s a busy that energizes me instead of drains me. The business side drains me. I don’t mind having control over things, but it does require focus and time. I feel like I’ve been running in the “hurry up and get this book out” hamster wheel since the beginning of 2016. In addition to writing for passion, I guess I also need to stop the rushing to publish another book mindset.

The business side of writing greatly rewards authors who can get books out fast because it pays better than taking one’s time. That’s been especially true since 2014 or so. There was a shift that happened some point along that time period that made it harder and harder for indie authors to stay relevant unless they were constantly getting something new out there.

But sometimes people have to make hard decisions. Money is nice, but killing oneself to get more of it isn’t a good way to pursue things. I need to prioritize things in their proper place. God, my family, and my health have to come before the publishing stuff. (Some might say that putting my health before family would be best, but I’m a mom, and I don’t think moms can do that. We tend to be people who will sacrifice ourselves for our children.) Anyway, if I don’t get my priorities right, I believe my stories will suffer for it. So it’s a good idea to hit the refresh button (or whatever you want to call it) and figure out a strategy to get things lined up in their proper order.

Could There be a Good Reason why Writing to Market Works so well for Authors?

For those of you who are tired of me rambling about my experience as I shift from writing to market to writing for passion, you may want to skip this post. 

That warning aside, let’s dive into the topic that has been weighing on my mind for the past few days.

Pondering the Ramifications of Writing for Passion

It’s becoming apparent to me that the way writing to market works is by giving people what they expect. It’s working off of what is already popular. It’s working off of “familiarity”.

I knew this in theory, but as I’ve been going back to writing for passion (which is writing outside of the box), I’m starting to feel this. It’s no longer something on paper. It’s now something that is right in front of me where I can experience it. Part of this is because of the feedback I’ve been getting from the past two books I’ve written more to passion than to market, but it’s also from research I’ve been doing on this subject.

I just got through watching a You Tube video about why modern pop songs (in the US) is becoming more and more “cookie cutter” as the years go on. That video has inspired this post. I have noticed how similar songs are on my radio. I do hear them in the store, at the pool, and in movies. I hadn’t taken the time to connect how this relates to the world of writing until now.

When I was writing to market, I ran out of ideas because I had used up all of the ones I knew were “safe”. If I wanted to keep writing to market, I was going to have start doing “cookie cutter” books. I had exhausted all of my fresh ideas. Now, my reviews are a lot more positive when I stay within the box of what most romance readers expect in a book. I also earned more money when I was doing that. Based off my research and my personal experience, I have concluded that writing to market does pay off for authors who use this method of writing. That’s bad news for authors who are writing for passion because it means we have a tougher hill to climb. It’s not an impossible hill to climb, but there are going to be more challenges.

My hypothesis on why writing to market works as well as it does.

Now, the question came to my mind as to WHY writing to market is so fruitful. I have a degree in Psychology, and from to time, this part of me wants to come out and play, so I figured, what the hey.

Writing to market means you give the majority of people what they want. This is why so many books are cookie cutter books. Authors are trying to make a living at this. They want each book to sell. The best way to do that is to play it safe and not piss off the people who will read your books. The You Tube video about music mentioned the problem of risk and how it’s affected the kind of music that becomes popular today. The relevant stuff starts at the 13:50 mark in the video, if you want to watch it.

Risk affects what authors write. It affects what publishers accept. It affects what gets out into the mainstream. Over the past few years, an explosion of books have found their way to online stores. What this means is that it’s harder for authors to get noticed. Authors have learned that if they want to get more exposure, they need more people taking an interest in their books. The best way to do that is to piggyback off of what has been successfully done before. The keyword here is “successfully”.  That is what writing to market is. It’s taking out as much risk as possible. It’s sticking with what is familiar.

Familiarity is what attracts people. This is why there are some cookie cutter books out there. A segment of the population complains that there are too many cookie cutter books out there. There is a good reason for this. Cookie cutter books sell pretty darn well. There’s a reason why a lot of people have heard of Harlequin. Harlequin was big before self-publishing grabbed a foothold in the romance community. Harlequin is still around, but it’s not as big as it once was. The last I heard, they were shutting down some of their lines. One thing I heard about Harlequin was that they liked to base their romances off of a formula. The formula they used apparently worked since they had a huge readership. Self-pubilshing disrupted that business. Self-publishing disrupted a lot of things, but the traditional publishing business is one of them and Harlequin was a part of that.

Early on, I don’t recall any self-published author talking about writing to market. In fact, the benefit of self-publishing was that you didn’t have to write to market. The market for the traditionally published author is the publisher. The market for the publisher is the reader. The publisher didn’t like risk, so it would offer “safe”. When self-publishing came on the scene, it was about the freedom to write for passion. It was about throwing off the shackles of the publisher telling us what to do. It’s why I went into self-publishing.

Then authors found out there was money in self-publishing. And from there, the shift went from the pursuit of writing for passion to writing for money. There’s nothing wrong with making money from writing. I believe authors should make money from their work. The problem I have is when money is more important than the passion. My problem is when money is the only thing that matters.

Risk is hard to embrace. It means going against the grain. It means that you have to venture into areas other authors in your genre aren’t going in. It means potentially upsetting some people. It means stepping out of the comfort zone and diving into areas that aren’t often done. It means doing things differently. It means doing the unexpected.

In my research, I have discovered that authors who take those risks end up with less money than those who play it safe. Sure, there are examples of an author who did something different and became successful because of it. That kind of thing does happen, but more often than not, authors who are writing to market seem to make more money because they are delivering what most people expect.

The You Tube video posed something I thought was interesting at the 16:50 mark. There is something called the Mere-Exposure Effect, and it basically states that our brains release the chemical called dopamine when we hear something that is familiar to us. Dopamine makes us feel good. As result, we gain a preference to what we see and hear on a regular basis. I went on to research this idea, and I came across this online article that explained why music can be addicting. This is why we prefer certain types of music to others. So from that, I deducted that frequent exposure to a certain thing actually leads us to want more of it.

Could the same be true for books? Could there be a scientific reason why writing to market works as well as it does? Reading involves our emotions. I’m sure those emotions lead to the release of a variety of chemicals in our brains. If our brains reward us (make us feel good) when we get what we’re expecting in a story, then it leads us to want to read more books like the one we just read.

That’s something I never considered before, and I think it’s an interesting idea. So part of the problem of writing for passion (and taking those risks) is that most people’s brains aren’t tuned into “different” stories. Their brains reward them for sticking with familiar terrain. Perhaps “the same kind of story” is exactly what most people want, and this is why authors who write to market are doing as well as they are. Obviously, authors who say they write to market try to make their stories unique. They put their own spin on things. But, in the end, the goal is to please the majority of people in the genre they’re writing.

Personally, I have no qualms about writing to market. It burned me out. I can’t do it anymore. No amount of money is going to push me through forcing out a book that I can’t get passionate about writing. But I certainly understand why some authors do it, and these authors manage to do it very well. I just thought what I came up with my research on music was interesting and thought there was a correlation between music and writing books. Hopefully, I didn’t bore anyone with my ramblings.

How to Remove Skunk Spray

Yesterday morning, we woke up to the realization that a skunk had sprayed our carport. We live a little further out of town. It’s not too far since I can get anywhere I need to within 10-15 minutes, but we are far enough out where we have plenty of wildlife in the area. This kind of thing comes with the territory.

Since this was the first time I ever had to deal with skunk spray, I thought I’d share some things I learned (thanks to You Tube). So if you happen to come across a situation where you need to remove skunk spray, this is what to do.

I can testify that the 1 cup bleach + 1 galloon of water solution works. Between running to the store to get the bleach and bucket then running out to the garage about 30 times to dump the solution all over the garage, it did take me about 3.5 hours, but it worked!

Since that method worked so well

I haven’t had a need to boil vinegar in the house, but I bought a large container of vinegar yesterday. I also bought the hydrogen peroxide and baking soda in case someone in the family gets sprayed in the future.

I did end up using a natural spray to go around the areas I don’t want any skunks going. I bought a spray bottle, and I will be buying cayenne pepper. That way if the spray I bought doesn’t work, I have a backup plan. (I’m the kind of person who likes to have everything ready in advance.)

My main concern is also having stuff that isn’t harmful to kids. I try to stay away from harmful chemicals as much as possible. And I was using the bleach solution in the garage while they were in school so that by the time they got home, that had evaporated. Something I learned as a parent is that you really never know what kids will get into, and even older kids have moments where they slip and get into things they shouldn’t.

Now, since this happened in a carport, the cars were affected. I went to an automotive store yesterday and the person there recommended Ozium. This happens to be something that is potentially hazardous if breathed in, so my husband sprayed this in the car when he got home, and we made sure the doors were locked so the kids wouldn’t go into it. This morning at 5:30, I went outside and rolled down all of the windows. I wanted to make sure anything lingering from the spray would be gone by the time I needed to take the kids to the bus stop. In Montana, it’s cool in the mornings so it was the ideal time to air out the car. (And yesterday I kept the car outside of the carport.) When I drove to the bus stop an hour later, the skunk smell was gone. I think Ozium got the smell completely out, but I need to check on it this afternoon when it warms up to know for sure. If the trick doesn’t work, I’ll let you know. The good news is that the smell wasn’t that bad in the car, and no one smelled like skunk after being in the car. So I’m not that worried about it. The main thing is that the smell is gone from the carport.

Anyway, I’m passing this information along in case you ever need it. Hopefully, you won’t.

Sometimes You Have to Push Through It

Long intro (you might want to skip):

I haven’t had a week where it was like pulling teeth to write anything in a long time.  The problem has to do with what I’ve been eating. I haven’t felt this bad since I was about 34 or 35. I’m 43 now, and I have felt tons better since adjusting my diet. I’m 43, guys. You know what that means? I KNOW better than to eat things that are going to make me feel like crap. Basically, I feel like someone hit me in the head with a baseball bat. And it’s all because I let myself slip into eating and even drinking a lot of sugary products. As much as this sucks to feel this way, I’m actually grateful my body is sensitive to what I do with it because it forces me to behave. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Updates on What I’m Doing

First of all, I’m very pleased with the changes I made to two of my fantasies that are decades old. All this time, I felt like something was missing, and now that I finally got that resolved. I feel like the romance between the main hero and heroine lead is finally complete. This is why I will always and forever be a romance writer, no matter what other genre I dip my toes into.

Second, I am halfway into my pen name’s book. This isn’t a fantasy like the others were. This one is a straight out YA thriller where a girl saw her student kill a classmate, and no one believes her. The student is now coming for her, and unless she can prove he committed the crime, her time will be up.

Part of keeping the creative process going is working on multiple genres. I don’t know what it is about dabbling with different genres that do this, but each time I do, I notice the creativity explode when I work on romance.

Speaking of which…here is what I’m doing in the romance genre…

The Perfect Wife will be out August 25
[image error]

Click here to pre-order!

I got it up on all the channels. I notice that Amazon isn’t linking my series recently, and one theory is that it’s because I’m doing pre-orders over there. The Perfect Duke (Book 4 in the Marriage by Fate Series) never linked up with its series on Amazon. When I put The Perfect Wife (Book 3 in the Misled Mail Order Brides Series), it didn’t link up to its series on Amazon, either.

So I’ll put up my next book without doing a pre-order for it on Amazon. If that book does link up to the series it’s supposed to be in, then I know it’s a pre-order issue. If it doesn’t, then I know I have another problem going on. Fortunately, I’m not having this problem at other retailers. When things don’t run smoothly, it causes a certain degree of stress. I’ll keep an eye on this situation.

One Enchanted Evening is over halfway done
[image error]

Click here to pre-order!

I expect to finish the first draft at the end of this month. I am almost at 50,000 words, and things are building up for the final event of the story. This one has a gothic feel to it. There is the fairy tale undertone to it. That is the foundation of the story. It’s loosely based off of Cinderella, except Cinderella isn’t so perfect and her step-sister knows it. It’s the ideal setup for a gothic historical romance, and since it takes place in the Regency world, I’m putting it under the Regencies category in my book list.

This one has been especially fun to write. I’ve explored dark areas of my writing that I haven’t done before. It’s been a challenge, to say the least, and it’s always fun to stretch the creative muscles to try something new. I had the climax of this story in mind before I even started it, and I’m so excited to get to it! I loved the climax in The Marriage Contract where the hero was forced into a sword fight then pursued on horseback toward the bridge. Honestly, that is one of my favorite endings of all time. I’m looking forward the end of this book, too, with the same kind of excitement. I don’t want to say what it is because I don’t want to spoil it.

The Imperfect Husband is at 16,000 words now

 

[image error]

Click here to pre-order!

 

I average 60,000 words a book, so this gives you an idea of how far I am into it.  This one gave me a huge “Oh wow!” moment the last two days I’ve written in it. I had no idea part of the hero’s reason for being so insecure and shy around Annabelle stems from his relationship with his family. I thought it was weird that he didn’t run off to his parents right away at the beginning of this book. I noticed he felt easier around Annabelle’s family than his own, but I had no idea why. I just knew I had to trust the process and that there was a good reason for it. (This is the subconscious mind at work for us pansters.)

Anyway, I got to the scene where he and Annabelle go to have dinner with his parents, and all at once, so many pieces of the puzzle fell into place, and I was so excited as I started piecing them together. Now I understand him so much better. The poor guy has a younger brother who is the favorite, and he’s used to being second place in a lot of ways. Annabelle is the only one who is going to be able to help him realize his full value. That is going to be fun to work out!

I’m actually making good progress in Shane’s Deal

[image error]

Yep, this one is Book 4 in the Montana Collection, and it’s finally getting done. Madeline Thompson (the woman the men at the beginning of Boaz’s Wager were searching for) has finally shown up in Lewistown, and the hero has signed up to protect her. It’ll be interesting to see how the story progresses, but I know the mayor is going to finally be exposed for the sneaky lowlife he is. If you remember Boaz’s Wager and Patty’s Gamble, you know the mayor isn’t that nice of a guy. I’m looking forward to giving the mayor what’s coming to him.

Kidnapping the Viscount is a lot more fun than I expected
[image error]

Click here to pre-order

I really love the dynamic between the hero and heroine in this book. The heroine think she’s the one calling the shots, but it’s really the hero who’s doing it.

My original idea was for this to be a brooding kind of hero who is forced to marry the heroine, and I expected him to be upset with her for half of the book. If I was writing this to market, that is how I would write this. However, since I’ve gone back to embracing the passionate side of writing again, I thought, “I’d rather have the hero be someone with a great sense of humor who really wants to be with the heroine but wants her to prove how much she wants to be with him since she rejected his proposal in the past.” And he’s going to do this in a way that will make the book a humorous read. This is not a book for people who prefer things to be serious. This is a light-hearted and fun romance where nothing is taken seriously.

****

As I glance through the stuff I wrote about the romances, I realize that, even within romance, I like variety. I don’t like to stick with one type of story. I think doing different kinds of romance (gothic, sentimental, humorous, some more spicy than others) help to keep me at my most creative. I’m not the kind of author who can only write one thing, regardless of the genre I’m in. I think this might also help me write more than one book at a time. Since these books are all so different, it’s easier to keep them all separate. Now, I do slip once in a while and call a character the wrong name, but stuff like that gets found during the edits. So anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing how these stories all play out.

Get the Book Right the First Time (A Writer’s Reflection)

You’d think by now, I would have learned this lesson. I’ve been writing since I was in high school. I did things from YA and adult romances, which never saw the light of day–it was the efforts of a 15 and 16-year-old, so be glad you were spared that horror :P. After high school, I did science fiction to fantasy to thrillers. I started writing adult romance in 2007 and quickly realized this was the genre I loved writing most. So with all of that experience under my belt, you think I would have learned that it’s important to get the story exactly the way I want it the first time.

And yet, yesterday I was adding some scenes I had always wanted to put into one of my fantasies but hadn’t because of fear. I hate fear. Fear is the thing that prevents a story from becoming the best it can be. Fear comes in to destroy the creative process. Instead of looking at what’s right, it looks at all the things that will make a story wrong. Fear is based on what other people might think. It goes against what the characters want.

Though I am not a fantasy writer, I do love the four fantasies I wrote way back in the day, and I have a soft spot for them. I don’t often go back over them, but I had the inkling to last week, so I’ve been working my way through them. As I was listening to them on my Kindle (using that text-to-speech feature), I realized I wasn’t happy with Books 2 and 3. Not totally happy. Something was missing. I knew what that something was, but did I have the courage to do something about it? And did I dare take the time from other writing projects to make them?

Sometimes it’s hard for a writer to have the courage to do what will make the story 100% what the author had envisioned. Like I said, fear creeps in, and it can be crippling to the creative side. My fantasies aren’t popular. They aren’t my main focus. My main focus is romance, and I want it to stay that way. I dabble in other genres because I get the urge to do so once in a while, and I find it actually enhances my creativity so when I go back to romance, the ideas flow better than before. This isn’t something a savvy marketer would do, but I’m not going to worry about that angle of things anymore. I’m done with it. I just want to go back to having fun, and fortunately, I’m in the position where I can do that. For the authors who need to write specifically to a market in order to make ends meet, you have my sympathies. I know that is not easy!

Anyway, I spent yesterday changing Book 2. I uploaded it to Smashwords, and then I downloaded the Smashwords version to my Kindle so I can listen to it. The changes don’t change the story. It won’t do that for Book 3, either, which is why I’m only going to upload the new version to Smashwords. Smashwords will send out the versions to the retailers like B&N, Kobo, and Apple, but I don’t download books from those sites to listen to on my Kindle. I would use a Nook, Kobo device, or my iPhone if it came with the text-to-speech feature on my books, but alas, it doesn’t.

Since I’m that tech savvy, it took me an hour to figure out how to get a mobi file from my desktop to my Kindle. It turned out, I had to download an app to make the transfer possible. This morning I have a headache because I went through this craziness right before bed, and it took some trial and error to get it right. But see, Amazon doesn’t automatically update the interior files of a book. It does update covers (after some time), but it doesn’t do interior updates, and these changes are so small that it’s not worth bugging Amazon about it (nor am I going to update the books on Amazon). Smashwords, however, is very easy to update anything, so that’s why I’m doing it over there.  I know a lot of people complain about Smashwords, but I love Smashwords for the ease it provides authors and readers. (Okay, I will admit figuring out how to get a Smashwords mobi file up to my Kindle wasn’t a piece of cake, but now that I know how to do it, it will be easy.)

So anyway….

To get back to the point….

Stories need to be told in the spirit of the creative voice. Fear (aka critical voice) will make the story less than what it should be. Now, I know there’s a balance that needs to be employed somewhere along the way, but when a writer feels like something is missing from the book, then that feeling has to trump trying to appease potential readers who won’t like it.

That’s what fear is in a nutshell: it’s worrying over what someone might think when they read the book. Sometimes the criticism is valid. I still think the changes I made at the last minute to The Perfect Wife made the story better. I’m happier with the final version. Having an editing team is good for some checks and balances. In the case of The Perfect Wife, this helped me get the book right the first time. Now it’s on pre-order, and I can walk away from it, knowing I got it the way I wanted it. The fantasy books, however, were a different matter, so I have to go back and tweak on it so that I’m happy with the final product.

In the end, writers are stuck with the books they write. Regardless of whether the books sell or not, they belong to the writers, and this is why (in my opinion), it’s important that the writers are happy with the finished product. Otherwise, the writers might find themselves in the position I’m in. They might be wishing they’d had the courage to write the story a different way in years to come. Yeah, money is nice. No one is going to argue that, but there’s something about being satisfied in the long run with something you created that supersedes financial rewards.

My goal moving forward is to get each book right the first time so that I don’t have to go back and change things later on.