Rachael Herron's Blog, page 18

Rock the Boat

Y’all, I wrote another book.

 ROCK THE BOAT BUY LINKS:
Amazon | Kobo | iBooks | B&N | Google

Jake’s story was SUCH a long time coming. I feel I owe this sailor an apology. When I started the Ballard Brothers, he was the one I really wanted to get to — I was in love with him, and the idea of him sitting on his boat docked in the Darling Bay marina, waiting for love.

But I got busy writing other things, and other genres trumped romance for a while.

Now he has his story, and his happily ever after. It’s funny to come to a book with the male half being the important one, at first. I usually start with my female characters. So for Jake, I had to think of someone smart enough and strong enough to be a good foil for him, but also someone grounded enough to provide him with the roots he’d always lacked.

Zora is that character. I love her passion for gardening, and for the kids she teaches, and most of all, her inability to zip it when other people might keep quiet. She says what she means, kindly, but without apology. I love that in a woman.

I hope you enjoy the story. I know I enjoyed writing it (no, THAT IS A LIE. It was a struggle to write. Some books come easy, some come kicking me in the face all the way through. But the revision was smooth sailing because then I knew what their story had to be).

Viva love!

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Money, Honey!

Hello writers!

Every year I write about what I make money-wise as a full-time author. I do this for a few reasons, but the biggest one is that there’s always been a veil of secrecy around how much writers make. You can find stats, but they’re anonymous. Many times, I say that I’m a full-time author with two dozen books out, and people think I’m rolling in the dough. And honestly, I AM, truly. I can afford to pull my weight with our San Francisco Bay Area bills. My wife provides our insurance. I’m SO lucky! We have enough to live on, and then some. (Focus this year: SAVINGS! See previous blog post.)

But if you’re imagining unlimited wealth without reason, well, no.

[My darling – if you haven’t finished your book yet, try hard not to take any of this to heart. WRITE THE DAMN BOOK because you love it, not because you’ll make money with it. Only after it’s good and revised should you start hoping and working for moolah. That said, read on!]

I’m a lucky outlier. The stats are bleak. Writing has been devalued by the glut of product on the market as self-publishing opens the doors for all to write (and I mean ALL to write). I honestly think this is a great thing. Want to have your voice heard? Write it. Put it out. May it fly from the virtual shelves, dear writer.

That said, I didn’t drop out of Economics in college twice without learning at least one thing: as supply goes up, price goes down. That’s how it works.

Supply is up, way up. There are many discerning readers who are looking for OUR beautifully crafted novels, but there are also many more not-so-picky readers who will read and enjoy things that aren’t, say, as lyrical as yours or mine, and they’re happy reading what they’re reading. God bless. That’s also the way the market works.

What to do? Friends, ignore the market. Write what your heart wants to write, what spins you out at night while you’re lying in bed trying to sleep. Write what freaks you out and makes you shiver with bliss. Make it breathe with your passion. When you’re done writing the book, done revising it at least once, then consider the market. You can then shape any book into a genre from which you can try to gain interest, either from an agent or from readers directly. Write with passion first, then edit with an eye to marketing.

Remember: PEOPLE STILL BUY BOOKS. Even a tiny niche of an audience in a sub-genre of a sub-genre is enough to supply you with the income you need if you work your ass off. I do believe you need to work your ass off, though.

For a depressing read, you can read the results of the Authors Guild Income Survey for 2018 that came out three days ago (all quotes below are taken from it). It takes into account self-published writers as well as traditional and hybrid (it was a huge group push by a ton of professional groups, including the Author’s Guild, RWA, MWA, ITW, PEN American Center and many more. If you’re part of a pro group, you probably took the survey–I know I did).

Rather Bleak News

Overview, midlisters (like me) and literary writers are feeling it the worst, and are “on the edge of extinction.” CHEERY!

Amazon and traditional publishers’ focus on blockbusters is a combo that is punching us all in the face (and I will keep popping up, personally, hoping to be struck at some point with the magic blockbuster wand. Fingers crossed! I can take a lot of hits, don’t you worry. I’m a jack-in-the-box with good lipstick).

Royalties are down across the board.

The median income for all authors surveyed was down to $6,080. Median income based on just book-related activities was down to $3,100.

For full-time authors: “Median income for full-time authors for all writing-related activities, however, was $20,300 in 2017, up 3% from 2013. Note, however, that is still considerably lower than the $25,000 median income full-time authors earned in 2009.”

Self-published authors as a whole still earned 58% less than trad-published authors (and romance writers still do better than anyone else). “Note that the median 2017 author-related income of $10,050 for self-published romance and romantic suspense writers is almost five times higher than the $1,900 median author-related income for the next highest-earning self-published genre category of mysteries and thrillers.”

Holy shit, I AM LUCKY. Here are my numbers, in handy-dandy graph form.

My best year ever! I’m up 17% from last year, which was, in fact, my target goal, as I’d made 17% more in 2017 than in 2016. Next year’s goal? Approximately 17% more = $100,000! Will I hit it? I have no idea. Publishing money is crazy, yo. I can work my ass off and try to predict things and still get it wrong. We’ll see.

EVEN MORE

If you want more details about what I made this year, here’s my annual money podcast, with a year’s roundup (or grab the episode on audio wherever you listen to podcasts).

My main takeaway from the survey and from 2018?

MY GOD IT’S NOT EASY to be a full-time writer. Or any kind of writer, really. And that’s before money even comes into it.

That said, writers are a special breed. We’re more stubborn than anyone else in the world. We DO NOT QUIT. (Okay, some writers quit, but those are writers and you have a capital-W in front the kind of Writer YOU are, don’t you? I know you do. You want this. YOU CAN HAVE THIS.)

Bottom line: Show up. Do the work.

“Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a very dirty peanut across the floor with your nose.” – Joyce Carol Oates

Keep pushing the fucking peanut. You CAN do this. No one gets it easily. It’s hard won, and it’s worth it. Keep me posted.

Onward!

xo, Rachael

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A Year of Buying Less

I just read A Year of Less by Cait Flanders, and I loved it. I originally picked it up because I love books on minimalism and clearing clutter, but this one is truly about money, not clutter. I didn’t know I needed it, but I did.

She put into place a spending ban for a year, and her whole life changed.

I’m going to do something similar in 2019, and here are my personal rules (subject to change! but not at a whim so that I can buy a new blender or something):

MY BUYING LESS RULES

Do Buy: 

Consumables that I regularly use like food, vitamins, cosmetics (only eyeliner, mascara and lipstick of the kind I use now), shampoo, cleaning products, etc, only replacing what I run out of, no trying new products.
Objects I use that need replacing (after trying to fix, borrow, or get secondhand).
Gifts for others
Travel expenses, including vacation if we take one
Work expenses, including Patreon experiments
Meals out (or delivered), no more than once every two weeks

Do not buy:

Clothes, shoes, accessories.
Books, magazines, notebooks, etc. (I have enough of all of these, and the amazing Oakland library will order almost anything I request if it doesn’t have it already.)
Yarn, fabric, craft supplies, art supplies.
Household items, decor, appliances. (This is where I spend the most. I justify that it’s for “us.”)
Electronics.

(On this list, I can replace what wears out/breaks if it’s regularly used and I can’t fix or borrow a replacement. I will look for a used replacement first from a thrift store or CL. This includes the very remote possibility I use up all my yarn and/or fabric. HA. As if.)

Wobble Zone:

Things that I suddenly believe I need (not just want) that I’ve never had before. I will put these into a 30-day time out zone. If I still want them 30 days later just as fervently, I might purchase them new after making sure I can’t get them used. I AM NOT A SAINT, PEOPLE.

My goal:

Ever since I quit my day job in 2016, my goal has been not to dip into our emergency savings. Breaking even was what I wanted for the first few years. But this year we have $3k less than we did when the year started. Unacceptable! I want to save for a rainy day. Our 90k debt (oh, yes, friends, I do understand if you’re in deep debt) is gone, accomplished by working two jobs for 8 years (so together we had three jobs and threw all our money at the debt). Now, once we’re done building a six-month emergency savings (currently only at 2.5 months), I want to put money away for our retirement.

How I’ll do it:

I’m moving $250/month to that savings now, as of this month. That will make up that $3k loss. Everything I want to buy and think I would have bought in 2018 and do not buy, I get to put that money in savings. Woo! Seriously, I’m excited about doing that!

I’ll be writing about this process for my Patreon essays this year, as I seek less of a material focus in my life and put more focus on mental, emotional, and spiritual growth.  I’m going to be exploring weird things I don’t understand or believe in, for fun. I tried to look at that shelf in B&N last night and could barely handle it. CRYSTALS, REALLY? Oh! I’m allowed to spend money on this pursuit, like palm readings or astrologers, etc. The book is tentatively called Woo!

Oh! Lala is not in on this, nor am I trying to make her jump on board. She makes way more money than I do. I don’t get to make her rules.

I AM REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THIS.

(Want in or to play along? Pledge a buck a month and get access to every essay I write, including the 24 back essays that comprise the last two books!)

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On Covers, Proofs, and Colds

(Oh, damn it! I wrote a post yesterday but it never posted, apparently. I didn’t win NaNo. I revised a book instead. I’m happy with that. There, now you’re caught up.)

I’m in bed. It’s gray outside, and I’m fighting a cold. Wait, why do I say that? The cold has me—I’m not fighting it. I’m reminded that I haven’t gotten my flu shot yet and won’t be able to until I’m well. Damn it.

Dozy is under the covers resting against my calf, lazily licking one paw. None of our dogs are people-lickers, which I appreciate, but I like the feeling of her whiskers brushing against the top of my foot every few seconds.

I’ve gone back to bed for the morning, and gratefulness fills me that I’m able to do this.

Those are proof pages for STOLEN THINGS.

And check out my amazing cover! 

Oh! I have a new website!  Go look at my scary thriller face with lots of eye makeup. And check out my new GORGEOUS cover for the new book (out in August, which is a long time away, but you can preorder it now so that you don’t forget to!). And follow me (RH Herron) on Facebook and Twitter and signup for that mailing list so you get all the notifications and so that I don’t feel so alone in the world over there as a newly-named writer!

Anyway, back to proof pages. This is the very last time I’ll touch this book. The edits are done, big and small. The copyedits are done. This is the book laid out as it will appear to you, and I need to go through it and make sure each word is as good as I can make it (while keeping changes minimal, as changes are expensive for my publisher to make at this point).

Have I mentioned how lucky I am to be with Dutton (Penguin)? My editor Stephanie Kelly is a dream. I love working with her, and she also works with Kitten Lady, so she has amazing taste. The head of the art department  reads each book before working on the cover, and it shows. Dutton is a small imprint within a mighty publishing house, so I get the boutique attention with power behind it. (I am so very, very lucky.)

And it’s going to be in HARDCOVER. My first! I gotta tell you that when I learned this, I was gobsmacked. My book. A hardcover. I guess it feels like it’s taken seriously enough to be hardcover, which isn’t what it means—it’s a financial decision by the publisher, nothing more. But for my writer’s ego? Ah, the ego likes this stroke.

I love this book. I love the fact that I have a cold and that I get to work on it for the last time while in bed. Clementine is now also on the bed, looking regal. I’m warm. And I’m grateful.

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No NaNo Win But That’s Okay

Well, I failed at NaNo, but what a good way to do it.

I didn’t finish my project. Hell, I barely started. But I learned two important things: the Venice memoir has no So-What yet, so it must sit on the back burner for a while.

And I learned that I don’t mind not winning Nano. In fact, on the contrary – I’m almost proud of my non-accomplishment! (I did write a whole book in October, so that does help with the feeling.)

But what I’d still really like to do is to blog more. Simply to write here, on ye olde blog. I’d like to catch a few words every day and tell you what’s going on around here. I forget to do that, as I get so busy with all the Shoulds. And I don’t want to make a big deal of it. I don’t want to be smart and insightful unless that happens on accident. I want to be okay with typos and half-formed thoughts.

So I’ll tell you what’s around me right now: a coworking space! This one is cheap and not as fancy as many of the others in Oakland, but I’m liking it. I’m not sure I’ll commit – I’m here on a single day pass. There IS something pretty great about working around other people who aren’t paying any attention to anyone else, and it’s especially great that I can leave my laptop out when I go to the bathroom, something you can’t do at the library or the cafe.

I have this idea that if I work at a coworking space that I’ll be able to go home and leave work behind, something I can’t do when I work at home. I’ve said for years that I love working at home because I love being at home, which is true, but the problem is that it’s almost impossible to get up from my desk sometimes. Today, when I leave, I’ll stop working. This is my pledge. And I almost believe it.

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Day Eight

It’s day eight of NaNoWriMo and I haven’t started the memoir I meant to write this month.

I’m actually liking this method of doing NaNo this year–I’m using NaNo as a challenge to take myself less seriously. I really meant to start today (I couldn’t before this – Monday and Tuesday were 14-hour days of grading and teaching) and I didn’t. I still could today, this I know. I have lots of work, but I could squeeze in 30 minutes of writing before I go out tonight.

But will I? Probably not.

To be totally honest, I’m enjoying being the bad girl. Day Eight! No words! I’m “failing!” And it feels good, to lean into it, and to know that I’m still a writer. I’m just fine. I wrote 60,000+ words last month. It’s not even like I’m out of practice. But seriously, if I hadn’t written a word in months, I’d still be okay.

I said it on the Writer’s Well podcast this week: I’m just fine, as I am. If I win the Pulitzer in the next ten minutes, I’ll be just as fine then as I am now. If the New York Times writes a review about how I’m the worst writer in the world tomorrow, I’ll be equally okay.

This whole I’m-okay thing is WEIRDING ME OUT and also making me feel pretty content. I blame meditating for 30+ minutes a day for the last five weeks. (I wrote my last Patreon essay about the experience. It’s so good I’m running with it and still doing it.)

Maybe I’ll start my NaNo tomorrow! Maybe not!

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Already Behind

So, I’m already behind with NaNoWriMo, and I’m here to tell you–that’s OKAY! If you start on November 21st, and only get 1200 words all month, if that’s more than you would have gotten without the challenge, you’ve done an awesome thing. The point of NaNo is to get you out of yourself and get you moving on the page.

Here’s my excuse: I’ve been at Walker Creek Music Camp. It was important for me to take these four days (okay, three) off writing altogether. I had a vague hope that I’d find time to write, but I didn’t. Please note I’m saying I didn’t, not that I couldn’t. You can always, always find time to write, even if the only way you do it is to get up earlier. I could have written. I chose not to.

In fact, yesterday I skipped my country-singing class with Laurie Lewis. She’s a fantastic teacher, and I was enjoying learning from her.

But I was tired. My stomach hurt from all the seltzer I’d drunk the day before (true story). I went back to bed to “write” and instead, I read and dozed and spent 45 minutes trying to write a song that went nowhere but sure was fun to noodle around with. Three hours! I spent three hours doing, essentially, nothing, and my brain spent the whole time thanking me.

I’m reading Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance right now, and it’s already rewiring the way I think about myself.

I’m okay, just as I am.

You’re just fine, right now. The way you are, the way you’re sitting, what you ate, what you’re going to do tomorrow, everything you’ve already done today. It’s all just fine.

I’m doing NaNoWriMo, and I know I might not “win.” THIS IS SO GOOD FOR ME TO KNOW. Of course, I’ve lost NaNo in the past, several times. Sometimes I win. And it does not matter. If I win, I’m good. If I lose, I’m still good.

I’ve spent my life being competitive, mostly with myself. This month, I’m trying to let that go. It’s a funny month to do it, and it’s a strange use of NaNoWriMo, but hey, I believe in the power and magic of NaNo to achieve many impossible things. It seems impossible for me to let go of perfectionism in Gettings Things Done, but I managed to completely let go of perfectionism in writing first drafts (and how), so I have hope that this can be done.

This morning, as I skipped another morning of class, I’ve been sitting in the camp dining room reading my most recent Venice journal. As I think of things that I could write about in my Venice memoir, I’ve been jotting them down in another journal. I have two columns, the What and the So What. What happened, and what did it mean? 

This kind of brain dump assures me that I’ll have more than enough to write about this month. When I teach memoir, I always encourage my students to write whatever comes to them, in whatever order. Throw all the scenes into a big box. Organize them later. I’m following my own advice, and I’ll let you know how it goes.

Grateful for this moment: No one is paying any attention to me. I can hear the last-chance jam playing “Rambling Man,” which they’ve been playing for at least ten minutes now. Outside the big windows, the sycamores are losing their leaves. Young live oak trees, no more than ten years old, I’m guessing, circle the property, and I just looked out to see a hawk slanting through the wind near the flagpole. A man is whistling along to a song that isn’t “Rambling Man,” and he’s been doing so since — AUGH, he just came over and said,

“Are you really a word prostitute?”

“Yes,” I said, unamused. To myself I thought, I really have to cover up that sticker on my computer. 

And now he’s been met by another male whistler. They’re chatting now, but I expect them to break into whistled song at any minute. (I’m an absent-minded whistler, too. I know how annoying we are, but I swear, it’s impossible to hear when you’re doing it yourself.)

Soon–GOING HOME! I haven’t been home on the weekend for almost a month, and I CANNOT WAIT to be home and not on deadline. So, so, so grateful.

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November is for NaNoWriMo!

So it’s November 1st, and you know what that means, my friends. It’s time for NaNoWriMo! I’m going to try something (and I very well might fail! I’m okay with that. I fail a lot, and it’s just part of life. I also succeed quite a bit, since I’m not too scared of failure).

I’m going to try to blog every day about how my NaNo is going for 2018. This might not work right off the bat, since Lala and I are off to music camp for four days, and I don’t suppose I’ll have much time to write my NaNo words, let alone a blog, but you see? I still have grand intentions!

Just like I did in 2006, the first year I tried NaNo. I won that year and that book turned into my first published book, How to Knit a Love Song, which came out from HarperCollins in 2010. I’ve written more than 20 books since then, but I’ve never managed to capture the sparkling magical unicorn PLAYFULNESS of that first year, because every year since then, I’ve tried to Write Something For Money during NaNoWriMo.

Not this year. This year, I’m a rebel. I’m writing a memoir of my time in Venice over the past twenty-five years. I’m doing it because I want to. I’ll eventually package it into a book and either self-pub it or give it to my agent if she thinks it’s good enough, but I’m decidedly not worrying about that now.

November is for play. For recapturing that magic I felt the first year. I have dreams of combining the magic of Venice with the magic of NaNo, which means that I think the book will be made of sparkles and moondust and the sound of a gondola’s paddle just around the corner of the next crumbling building. Of course, it will end up being something else entirely–books never do what I want them to do.

They always do something better.

Are you doing it, too? I’m yarnagogo over there – buddy me if you’d like, and let’s do this!

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Email On Your Terms

EMAIL NIRVANA!

I have found the holy grail of email. Maybe you already use this, but I didn’t, and one week in, I don’t know how I didn’t use it before.

I’m always struggling with email. I use SaneBox – it helps a lot (affiliate link). I send emails to certain days when I can try again to get something done (I have emails I’ve forwarded to dozens of later dates. Eventually it either gets done or I delete it, realizing it doesn’t matter anymore). SaneBox does a great job of filtering important from nonimportant messages, much better than the Gmail application does, I’ve found.

But what SaneBox can’t help with is the fact that I get too much email. I don’t have anyone help me with my email –  I think it would take just as long to help an assistant make decisions as for me to just take the actions required.

And if you’re like me, you wander in and out of your inbox all day, astounded by how it keeps piling up. I’m talking only about actionable items, the things you need to do something with in order to clear them out.

So I tried Boomerang’s Pause Inbox for Gmail.

OH MY GOD IT IS SO GOOD

 

Boomerang is a free Chrome plugin. I’ve set it up to only deliver my email at  certain times. It drops my email at 8am, 12pm, 4pm, and 7pm.

Do I get less email because of it? No. I have exactly the same amount.

But I’m getting more done around the fact of my email.

How it helps is this (and this feels revolutionary):  after I check my email, no more comes in until a set time.

That means that if at 8:05 am, I’ve scanned my email and there are no flames that actually need to be put out, I can safely close my email. Nothing will come in again until noon.

That means I can just work.

There’s no need to check email.

It also works on my phone, too. Automatically.

So at noon, I pop in and see if any fires have broken out since 8am. Honestly, there are only ever three or four things that need immediate action every day, and this isn’t 911 (take it from me). I’m training people to wait a few hours for my response, also. This is a good thing.

There are hacks to it, of course. I’ve entered the email addresses of everyone I want to be whitelisted, people who can get hold of me by email at any time. They include my closest friends and family and my agent. Anyone else just has to wait until the next airplane dump of email.

So, yeah. It doesn’t save me actual time. But it does save me the eternal always-poking at email. You know, answering one, getting overwhelmed, clicking away, coming back to answer two more, feeling like crying, getting out the ice cream. (Being saved from this probably does save me time, but it’s hard to quantify. It saves me from FRUSTRATION, a gorgeous gift.)

And I’m getting more actual writing done because of it. Like this blog post!

I’m a fan. Thanks, Boomerang!

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In the Right Place

The funny thing about quitting drinking–I finally feel like I’m in the right place. There’s a quietness within me, and it’s not something I ever expected to be able to cultivate. But it’s there. Once, early on, I texted a sober friend and said, “I’m not upset about anything today.”

She texted back, “Sounds like you found some serenity.”

Huh.

I just didn’t think I was a serenity gal. I’ve always been all motion and action and drive and mania and DOING until I crash into my own wall and knock myself out. I’m both the hummingbird and the glass window, you know?

And it’s not about the quitting drinking, that’s the interesting part. A friend the other day said that alcoholism is like this: Hold up a sheet of paper. Rip off a small corner of it. That’s the alcohol. The rest of the sheet of the paper, that’s the alcoholism, the unquiet ever-freaking-out mind and body.

Working on giving that part of myself relief has brought some incredible peace into my life. I didn’t expect this when I quit. I expected to be boring, to be bored, to be no fun, to never HAVE fun again. Instead, I’m more present in my life than I have ever been before.

Today I have seven months. I haven’t quit forever, just for today, but those single todays add up over time, I guess, just like they say.

I’ve been going for short hikes lately in between writing sessions, and today, as I was walking, I saw, in front of me, the shadow of a leaf falling. It fell and spiraled–only the shadow–until the leaf caught up with its shadow on the ground, and they met.

I feel like I’ve been a shadow for a long time, and I’m meeting myself for the first time.

And for once in my whole damn life, I don’t feel guilty. I don’t need to be somewhere else, or to be outside my body. I don’t feel that unnameable but everpresent and overwhelming shame.

I just feel like me, and like that’s neither good nor bad–I just am.

(Yes, I joined a band this year and I’m contemplating taking up surfing. This might be a midlife crisis. If it is, I can recommend getting one. It’s delightful.)

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