Robin Jeffrey's Blog, page 10

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all enjoy this day of gratitude! Keep an eye on this space tomorrow to snag my special Thanksgiving gift to you!

HINT: The best things in life are free…

Subscribe to Robin’s Newsletter!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Thanks! Processing… Success! You're now subscribed. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

The Check-In

Welcome to THE CHECK-IN, where you can get a sneak peek into my writing progress every week! Read on to find out what I’m working on and how things are progressing in my world.

Here’s the breakdown:

Dirty Drinks – I can’t tell you how good it felt to sit down and start writing on this anthology novella again. I have high hopes for how this piece is going to turn out. Writing it has been so much fun and therapeutic in it’s own way. It’s hard to explain, but getting to stretch my writing muscles and write in a genre I don’t usually dabble in as been very freeing!Lonely is the Night – I’ve made some limited preliminary progress with the third book in The Night series, but am having a little difficulty finding one of the main character’s voices. Which is unusual for me, frankly. Still, going to keep plugging away at it and hope for a break through.Fickle Fae – The Untitled PNR is untitled no more — and also not a paranormal romance! I realized that I’ve actually got the beginnings of a fantasy romance on my hand, and I’m just as shocked as anyone. I really want to get back to this one, so hopefully I’ll be able to do a few hundred words on this soon.

I took a long break from writing, partially because I needed to step away and rest, and partially because I lost sight of why I was writing. But I’m back and pleased to find that I’m in good form, still able to do at least a thousand words a day. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep my momentum up and get some projects finished!

LESSON OF THE WEEK: TAKE BREAKS WHEN YOU NEED THEM — BUT DON’T BE AFRAID TO START AGAIN.

Subscribe to Robin’s Newsletter!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Thanks! Processing… Success! You're now subscribed. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Robin Jeffrey Author Shop NOW OPEN!

BY POPULAR DEMAND!

Visit the brand new shop to place your orders for signed books, bookplates, art prints, and microfiction – support me directly and get some great merch to boot. Signed books make fantastic holiday presents and microfiction capsules serve as excellent stocking stuffers!

If you want to be sure to stay in the loop with new merchandise added to the shop, sign up for my newsletter!

SHOP AWAY!

Subscribe to Robin’s Newsletter!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Thanks! Processing… Success! You're now subscribed. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Countdown to Bay Street Art Hop in Port Orchard!

1700262000

  days

  hours  minutes  seconds

until

Bay Street Art Hop!

Looking for some fun this Friday? Look no further! Wicked Words Romance Bookstore will be hosting me at Aphrodisia Boutique this Friday, November 17th, from 3pm to 7pm as part of the Bay Street Art Hop in Port Orchard!

Listen to steamy excerpts from my book, HUNGRY IS THE NIGHT, pick up a signed copy for yourself or your friends (they make great gifts!), and so much more at this one of a kind event!

I honestly can’t wait. It’s going to be so much fun! Hope to see you all there!

Subscribe to Robin’s Newsletter!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Thanks! Processing… Success! You're now subscribed. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Behind the Scenes Sunday

Asking for Help

Let’s take a peek at the cogs inside the machine and talk about why I write and how I write on Behind the Scenes Sunday! Today I’d like to talk about how hard it is and how important it is to ask for help when you need it.

Sometimes, the hardest thing in the world is admitting that you don’t have all the answers. It can feel demoralizing to realize that you can’t do it on your own. But those feelings of weakness and helplessness fade and disappear once you reach out to the community around you for support.

Writing is a solitary act. But being a writer doesn’t have to be. You can and should build a community of likeminded creatives around you, that you can reach out to when you’re at your lowest, when things just aren’t working out, when you need help. Your family, your friends, your fans, your peers — don’t keep them at arms length. Be honest with how things are going, even when they’re not going well. You’ll be amazed at how ready people are to pitch in and lend a hand.

It’s hard to ask for help. It’s the bravest thing you can do. And please know, that if any of you ever need help, I hope I can be there to offer at the very least an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on.

In this crazy world all we have is each other.

As always, if you’re interested in supporting me and my work, thank you: Hungry is the Night, my paranormal romance, is available on all major platforms, as are my classic murder mysteries with scifi twists, The Cadence Turing Mystery series!

Order Your Copies Now!

Subscribe to Robin’s Newsletter!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Thanks! Processing… Success! You're now subscribed. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Author Advice

Haruki Murakami & Self-Expression

This is purely my opinion, but if you want to express yourself as freely as you can, it’s probably best not to start out by asking “What am I seeking?” Rather, it’s better to ask, “Who would I be if I weren’t seeking anything?” and then try to visualize that aspect of yourself.

Novelist as a vocation
by Haruki Murakami

There’s a lot of talk in writing communities about finding your “voice”. The thing that makes your writing uniquely your own, that makes it stand apart from all the other pieces written by everyone else. Practice is often prescribed for those writers who are still in search of their voice, the idea being that the more you write the more you are likely to find that style of words, phrases, punctuation, theme, setting, etc. that sings to your soul. In his book Novelist as a Vocation, author Haruki Murakami offers us an alternative method of finding that originality.

Stop trying to damn hard.

Who would you be if you weren’t seeking anything is a great question. The idea being what would you choose to express if you were free from want, from pressure, from need. It’s that deeper, freer self that we attempt to access when writing. That’s where our “voice” rings from.

LESSON LEARNED: STOP TYPING. CLOSE YOUR EYES. TAKE A DEEP BREATH. AND LET YOUR TRUE SELF SHINE THROUGH.

Subscribe to Robin’s Newsletter!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Thanks! Processing… Success! You're now subscribed. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Behind the Scenes Sunday

Writing with a Chronic Illness

Let’s take a peek at the cogs inside the machine and talk about why I write and how I write on Behind the Scenes Sunday! Today I’d like to talk about the struggle of living a creative life while dealing with chronic illness.

For the past thirteen years or so, I’ve dealt with a chronic illness — Ulcerative Colitis. Honestly, I don’t like to talk about it. Essentially, I have an overactive immune system that attacks my intestines and causes all kinds of none too fun problems for me. It’s landed me in the emergency room more than once, and can derail my plans at the drop of a hat.

99% of the time, I have my UC under control. I’m on immunosuppressant drugs that keep everything quiet. Of course that means I’m more prone to other kinds of illness (common colds, viruses, etc.) but trust me when I say I’d rather have a cold than deal with a UC flare up. A cold sucks, but a UC flare up can literally take me out of commission for weeks at a time.

This fact surprises a lot of people who don’t know me very well. I hear a lot of, “Well, even if you’re stuck at home/not feeling well/not at 100%, at least you can still write, right?”

No. I can’t.

Writing is an incredibly mentally, emotionally, and yes, even physically taxing activity. And when your body is not operating at it’s best, creating anything, ESPECIALLY art, can be hard. And that’s frustrating. When you want to express yourself artistically but your body is getting in the way.

So I do my best to take care of myself. My body. Honestly, I could do a little better — eat better, exercise more, but it’s a work in progress. And it’s not entirely under my control. But I’m learning to take control over the parts of my health that I can and be gentle with myself when my chronic illness makes decisions for me. It’s all people like me can do.

As always, if you’re interested in supporting me and my work, thank you: Hungry is the Night, my paranormal romance, is available on all major platforms, as are my classic murder mysteries with scifi twists, The Cadence Turing Mystery series!

Order Your Copies Now!

Subscribe to Robin’s Newsletter!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Thanks! Processing… Success! You're now subscribed. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Author Advice

Ursula K. Le Guin and Self-Censorship

But our censors are not just the publishers and editors and distributors and publicists and book clubs and syndicated reviewers. They are the writers, and the readers. They are you and me. We censor ourselves. We writers fail to write seriously, because we’re afraid — for good cause — that it won’t sell.

The Language of the Night
by Ursula K. Le Guin

There will be plenty of people out there who want to silence your voice. Who will have a problem with what you have created no matter what it is. We call these “bad faith readers”. These bad faith readers will always be able to find criticism, always find a reason why your book shouldn’t exist, why you should be ashamed of yourself for creating it, and why it needs to disappear.

Don’t let yourself become one of these bad faith readers. And certainly don’t write for the bad faith readers.

Self-censorship can be hard to spot, but it’s vital for any artist to push back against it whenever it rears its ugly head. True art, good art, can only come from when we explore those things that scare us, that titillate, that provoke and enthrall and yes, sometimes that are censorious. But try to imagine a reader, a good faith reader, that will thank you for your work. That needed a light to be shone in dark places. You and your art will be the better for it.

LESSON LEARNED: WRITE YOUR TRUTH. SHOUT IT OUT LOUD. LET NONE SILENCE YOU – NOT EVEN YOU.

Subscribe to Robin’s Newsletter!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Thanks! Processing… Success! You're now subscribed. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Pop-Up Submissions TODAY!

1698595200

  days

  hours  minutes  seconds

until

Litopia’s Pop-Up Submissions!

Don’t forget! Today, October 29th, starting at 9am PST, I will be joining literary agent Peter Cox on his fabulous program, Pop-Up Submissions! I am really looking forward to returning to the show and reading some more wonderful work from authors around the world and hope to see some of you on the stream. Stop on by, won’t you?

Subscribe to Robin’s Newsletter!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Thanks! Processing… Success! You're now subscribed. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Author Advice

Anne Lamott and Characters

Knowledge of your characters also emerges the way a Polaroid develops: it takes time for you to know them.

Bird by Bird
by Anne Lamott

Creating characters is one of my favorite parts of the writing process. It can also be one of the most frustrating and most mysterious. After all, you’re crafting a fully formed human being from thin air. Someone who didn’t exist before not only has to exist now, but must do so in a complex and believable way. Where do you even start?

The important thing to remember when building any character is that it’s a slow process. Characters rarely (I almost want to say never) pop fully formed into a writer’s mind. We may have certain aspects of a character very clear in our mind (they hate being told what to do, they love soft jazz, they’d give anything to achieve X goal, etc.) but other things will be hazier. And we often won’t know what’s in those hazy areas until we have to go exploring in them. Just like the undeveloped sections of a polaroid picture, we can guess what might come into focus, but ultimately what does may be a complete surprise.

That’s what makes it so fun.

LESSON LEARNED: HAVE PATIENCE – CHARACTERS WILL REVEAL THEMSELVES TO YOU WHEN THEY ARE READY.

Subscribe to Robin’s Newsletter!

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Thanks! Processing… Success! You're now subscribed. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.