Holly Robinson's Blog, page 13

Suffering Doubts about Your Writing? 4 Time-Tested Tips to Help You Through a Crisis in Confidence

As I raced through the grocery store last Saturday, I ran into another writer, someone I’ve seen at occasional parties. “Wow,” she said. “I see you already have another book out. Good for you!”

Yes, good for me, I thought grimly, as we said goodbye. Good, except that I’ll probably never write anything decent again. And, even if I do, nobody will want it.

Such morose thoughts! Why? I have finally reached a level of success I never dared fantasize about; after all, it took me over two decades to publish even one book. Now, six years after publishing my first novel, I am about to publish novel #4 in October, with another under contract.

So why do I still feel so much doubt?

Because being a writer requires an active imagination. And, if you have any imagination at all—not to mention access to Publishers Weekly—you know that bad things can happen to good writers.

To start with, there are the factors outside of your control. For instance, your agent might retire or decide to drop you. Your editor might be laid off. Or you might not land another contract because the numbers on your last novel weren’t up to snuff. Who cares if your first three books sold like those first Cabbage Patch dolls? Not the publishing industry, apparently.

Then there is your own battered psyche. Any writer who has ever been rejected (and I don’t want to hear from you freaks out there who are exceptions to this) has a fear of being rejected again. We know how much it stings. It’s tempting to give in to the dark side when that happens; when my first novel received its tenth rejection in a single month, I ended up drinking Grand Marnier and eating dark truffles in our basement while watching “Moulin Rouge” and sobbing like a teenager on a bad prom date.

“Why should I keep writing?” I whined to a friend who made the mistake of calling to comfort me.

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” she said. “Just quit. Nobody asked you to be a writer.”

Ouch! It’s true! Nobody asked me to be a writer! And nobody asked you, or anyone else, either.

Yet, we want to keep writing. We have to keep writing, because, as our nation’s new Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrara, put it so brilliantly in a recent NPR interview, “the mere act of writing is an act of crossing over from silence into being.”

But how can we keep going during these frequent crises in confidence? Here are a few of my tricks. What are yours?

1. Work with Your Hands

There is something satisfying about handiwork, because you can see the physical results of your labor. Whether you’re baking bread, knitting a scarf, or weeding your garden, making something with your hands can set your mind on fire.

2. Forget about Success

Sometimes the best way to coax that muse to land on your shoulder is to stop trying to hard. So what if you fail? If you fail with this story, book, or poem, you’ll write something else. It doesn’t really matter what happens with the words you put on the page. Those words are for your entertainment only. My friend is correct: nobody asked me, or any of us, to write, and that’s an extremely liberating thought. We can do whatever the hell we want. These are our words to shape. The fun is in the process.

 

3. Stay Flexible

Recently, my editor asked me to consider writing historical fiction. Ha! The only subject in school I hated was history. I couldn’t memorize dates and names to save my life. “I’d be terrible at that,” was my automatic response. But, after thinking about her request for a while, I began to imagine a story about a famous New England poet from the nineteenth century, and suddenly thought, “Well, why not? I could always try it and, if I don’t like it, I won’t do it again.”

4. Keep Your Projects Warm

Even during times of self-doubt, the best cure is to keep your manuscripts warm. Tinker, don’t write. Say to yourself, “I’m not going to create anything brilliant today. I’m just going to fix this one sentence.” Often, that will keep your brain engaged in whatever your current writing project is, enough so that some secret door will open and let new ideas out when you’re least expecting it. Then, quite suddenly, that thing will happen that you’ve been hoping for: you will be writing without caring about who will read it or what they will think, because writing is your passion.

The post Suffering Doubts about Your Writing? 4 Time-Tested Tips to Help You Through a Crisis in Confidence appeared first on Holly Robinson.

Why It’s Harder to Write the Next Book than Your Last—And How to Keep Writing Anyway

 

I published my newest novel, Haven Lake, in April, and I have another book scheduled for publication in October. Yesterday, I started a new manuscript—my fifth book under contract with NAL/Penguin Random House.

I have experienced more success as a novelist than I ever imagined. So why is writing every new book harder than it was to write the one before? And how do I keep going despite my fears?

I thought things would get easier after experiencing the cycle of traditional publishing: write a synopsis, get an offer through my agent, receive an advance, deliver a manuscript, work on revisions with an editor, set up events with a publicist, do social media until my head spins.

When I published my first book, I had become accustomed to failure. I wrote many unpublished novels for over two decades before selling the first, so any tidbit of success had me texting my husband to see when he could come home and share a bottle of wine to celebrate. We even celebrated the “nice” rejections from editors in the beginning, because I was “getting closer.”

Now I’m here, on the other side of the divide between published and not. My books have all sold out their (admittedly modest) advances. The reviews have been largely positive. I enjoy doing book signings and events, large and small.

At the same time, I am constantly plagued by doubt.

I’m not alone in that. At a lecture I attended recently by Wally Lamb, he talked about how difficult it was to write the next novel after Oprah shoved him into the spotlight by choosing his novel, She’s Come Undone, for her book club. Elizabeth Gilbert garnered over nine million views for her TED talk, “Your Elusive Creative Genius,” where she admitted that she was afraid to write after the wild success of her memoir, Eat, Pray, Love.

I don’t have nearly as many readers to potentially disappoint as Lamb and Gilbert have, of course, but I worry about disappointing them all the same. I recently attended a book club, for instance, where the members had read one of my books and loved it, but were lukewarm about another of my novels, which they’d read the year before. And I know too well, from the experiences of several fellow authors, that the publisher might drop me tomorrow if my current novel doesn’t earn out, no matter how successful my previous books may have been.

So I am afraid every day that I write. I fear writing a book that isn’t as appealing to readers as the one before; getting too small an advance for publicists to bother with me; or, alternatively, I am afraid that I’ll receive an advance too large for me to earn out. I shudder when I see bad reviews and struggle not to compare my Amazon rank with the ranks of other authors.

With each new book, I fear that the plot won’t come together as tidily as it seemed in the synopsis, and that the characters will all sound the same. I worry that the setting won’t be as gripping as the setting in the last book, that my imagery won’t sing on the page, and that I’ll err on the side of too many flashbacks and cause readers to click on the next download on their e-readers.

The only thing that keeps me going is this: I write because writing is the thing I love to do. My passion to tell stories compels me to create characters whose voices eventually take over their narratives. That’s when I know that the writing is true and good, whether readers find the book and love it or not.

Educator and author William W. Purkey urged us to “Dance like nobody’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt.” I’d like to add more to that for anybody out there who is struggling to put words on the page: “Write your story for yourself alone; pour your heart out on the page.”

The post Why It’s Harder to Write the Next Book than Your Last—And How to Keep Writing Anyway appeared first on Holly Robinson.

Don’t Sweat Your Synopsis. Just Write It! 8 Easy Tips

 

 

Whether you’re an aspiring writer pitching a book idea to agents, or a seasoned author whose editor expects a synopsis for each new novel, creating a synopsis can feel like the worst writing you’ve ever done.

That’s because it IS the worst writing you’ve ever done. Imagine summarizing one of your favorite classics in a synopsis. Whether we’re talking Pride and Prejudice or Ulysses,that synopsis would be a snoozer, since it’s just a pitch giving the highlights of the plot. No pretty language. No tension. Just an outline in prose form.

But that’s exactly what you have to do in many instances as a fiction writer: pitch your work in abbreviated form. And, now that I’ve had to do this beastly synopsis exercise a dozen times for editors, I’ve realized that it’s highly useful.

For one thing, giving your agent or editor a synopsis can save time and heartbreak. When my editor rejected my last synopsis, for instance, she was essentially rejecting only 20 pages, not a 498-page novel that took me a year to write. Yeah, that rejection stung a bit, but I knew it was the concept of the book she didn’t like, so I wrote a different synopsis. She bought it.

Even if you’re self-publishing, crafting a synopsis is a useful tool, because it will help you conceptualize the book. Later, it will help you market it. Of course the novel will morph as you write and the characters take over, but you will always have that blueprint for the book’s foundation—and a pitch you can tweak over and over, whether you’re using it as book jacket copy or for something like a Goodreads giveaway.

All right. Down to basics: What is a synopsis? It is a summary of your novel’s narrative arc and describes the main characters and conflicts.

Here are eight easy tips for writing one:

1. Keep your language precise and active, and focus on telling the story.

2. Start the book in-scene with one of the main characters: “From the moment she woke on that chilly  February morning, Savannah Smith knew without a doubt that she would divorce her husband.”

3. Each time you introduce a character, give a quick character sketch: “Burly Jones is a 36 year-old workaholic whose biggest joys in life are horseshoes, women, and his motorcycle, not necessarily in that order.”

4. Don’t get bogged down in details. Stick to a few main characters and make their core conflicts clear.

5. As your plot unfolds, reveal it in steps the way you would relate a movie plot to friends over dinner, skipping the dull parts and hitting only the highlights.

6. Include a bit of dialogue to liven the tone: “I want you to know the truth before you see him.” Those were the last words her mother spoke, but Trish didn’t know what she meant.

7. Be sure the main conflicts are clear, and that there is a resolution to each conflict.

8. Keep your synopsis short, typically between 5 and 20 pages.

Now get busy. Stop sweating that synopsis and just write it!

The post Don’t Sweat Your Synopsis. Just Write It! 8 Easy Tips appeared first on Holly Robinson.

4 Lessons about Planting a Novel that I Learned by Revising a Garden

 

 

Even the doctor was shocked when she saw me last week. “You poor thing!” she said, shaking her head.

That’s not what you want your doctor to say to you under any circumstances, but she had a good reason: I came into her office looking like The Elephant Man’s ugly little sister. One side of my face was swollen beyond recognition, and my eyes were crusted shut.

Thank you, poison ivy.

I brought this condition on myself. You see, I’ve been revising this garden one weed and seed at a time. My husband and I bought a 1700s house from an elderly couple. The couple once had a beautiful garden, but they hadn’t done much in the yard for about ten years before we bought the place. I didn’t even know there was a garden out back until, one morning, I suddenly noticed a tree with white blossoms. It was a Rose of Sharon, I learned later, and it was being choked by some kind of vine.

I am no gardener. At the time we bought this house, I had never planted a vegetable or pruned roses. I could barely tell an iris from a cactus. But I felt sorry for that tree, so I got my husband’s rusty hacksaw and began whacking away at the vines, feeling like Harrison Ford in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

The tree, once freed, was so beautiful that I began going out to look at it. Gradually, I began spotting other plants in the ground around it that seemed like they might look nice if I cleared around them. I had no idea what any of them were; I finally went out and bought a plant book so I could look at the pictures while I was standing over each plant, making life-or-death decisions.

 

As the summer progressed and I cleared more weeds, I suddenly realized there were actual paths beneath my feet, too. These had once been gravel but were now mostly violets.

It has taken me three years to clear those paths and to learn what is a weed and what isn’t. I have planted my own flowers during that time, too, and the yard has started taking shape. In addition to the revised gardens already in place, I created a new flower bed filled with what I call my “Dr. Seuss” flowers (giant purple Alliums) interspersed with lilies in all different colors. I’ve grown flowers from bulbs and seeds, and sometimes I buy the plants. Certain plants take and others don’t. It doesn’t matter, I’ve discovered, because you can always revise your garden and try something new.

 

I got the poison ivy from hacking away at a leafless vine this spring, moving deeper into the existing garden to discover what still grows there and what I might buy to fill in the ground this coming fall, when I will indulge in online bulb porn. The swelling and itching were minor compared to what has turned out to be an unexpectedly pleasurable hobby: getting my hands dirty and watching things grow, just as humans have always done.

Best of all, revising this garden has taught me four essential lessons about writing:

1. You can’t plant a beautiful garden or write a novel that sings without putting in long hours.

2.  You can’t revise a novel, or a garden, until you’ve been at it long enough to recognize what kind of soil you have, and have time to learn from the mistakes you make along the way.

3.  What thrills you in your garden—like random assortments of lilies mixed with giant purple Allium—might be very different from what pleases your neighbor, whose garden consists of neat rows of yellow and white. That’s okay. Your vision is what makes your garden and novel unique.

4.  There is pain in failing at your garden, when an expensive new shrub dies or poison ivy causes you to itch and burn, just as there is pain in failing to sell a novel and in reading poor reviews of your work. The best way to get through that pain is to take good care of yourself, then get your hands dirty again and focus on what you love about the creative process, whether you’re trying a new variety of lily or planting the seeds for a new novel.

The post 4 Lessons about Planting a Novel that I Learned by Revising a Garden appeared first on Holly Robinson.

How One Novelist Was Dragged Out of Her Barn to Embrace Social Media

Like most writers, I spend hours alone and doodling on my laptop, even on Saturday nights. Until recently, I had zero interest in fist-bumping people on social media, preferring to spend my time on fiction rather than fall down virtual rabbit holes.

Publishers, however, have a different idea. These days, they expect authors to master social media to build publicity platforms and engage with readers. As one editor friend put it, “If you’re not maintaining an online presence, you might as well not exist, since that’s where books are marketed these days.”

And so I was dragged into social media, kicking my scuffed slippers.

I began by creating a web site. That seemed like the most useful thing to have, since so many people shop online. Having a web site meant I needed to blog, which I’d been loathe to do, because I have trouble finding enough time to match my shoes, never mind write fiction around my day job.

Oddly, though, once I started, I loved blogging. Instead of scribbling my meandering thoughts into paper journals—which I still do—I suddenly had a place to communicate my thoughts in a more cohesive, disciplined way.

The blog didn’t need an editor’s approval, so I was free to write whatever I liked. As an added bonus, people began commenting on my writing in real time—scary at first, but fascinating—and my posts got picked up by other web sites. Soon, I was blogging regularly for sites with bigger followings, like Huffington Post, Venture Galleries and Cognoscenti.

Once I’d established the web site and my blog, I realized people would be more likely to find me if I sent out a signal flare to let them know when I had a new piece up. That led me to create an author Facebook page and to tiptoe into Twitter.

Twitter terrified me, until I realized that 1) It’s a great way to follow the news and 2) I could follow all kinds of authors I admired. And that’s when things really got interesting: through Twitter, I started meeting people online, and those encounters often led me to meet them in person. Through social media, I have built a community of readers and writers in a way I never could have done if I’d remained in my barn office, offline and alone except for my dog and the occasional curious chipmunk.

Readers commented on my blog or connected with me through Facebook, and many of them ended up finding out about my events that way. The first writer I met through social media was mystery author Toby Neal—who self-publishes the fast-paced Lei Crime Series set in Hawaii—and she and I progressed rapidly from Twitter to emails (we always had more than 140 characters to say). Finally, we began meeting for writing retreats. She took this great photo of my barn on Prince Edward Island, and is now one of my best friends. I also met novelist Amy Sue Nathan online through her terrific web site, Women’s Fiction Writers; now, if I’m passing through Chicago to see family in Wisconsin, I always visit Amy in her hometown.

More recently, an editor asked if I’d blurb a novel by one of her writers, Rachael Herron. I loved the novel, Splinters of Light, and this led to several serendipitous things: 1) an online friendship with Rachael, who I will meet the next time I’m in San Francisco; 2) an introduction to Rachael’s agent, Susanna Einstein, who became my agent; and 3) a guest post on Rachael’s terrific blog, Yarn-A-Go-Go, about my new novel, Haven Lake.

Oh, and one more thing: in my guest post for Rachael, I mentioned that one of the scenes in Haven Lake was inspired by an anecdote in Catherine Friend‘s comic memoir, Sheepish, and added that my big dream would be to have a glass of wine on my porch with Rachael and Catherine some day. That got an instant response: Catherine Friend posted a comment on the blog, saying that she was teaching my memoir, The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter, in one of her writing classes in Minnesota, and would love to have that glass of wine!

A couple of weeks ago, I was on a panel at the Newburyport Literary Festival; as I walked into an inn where a writer friend from out-of-town was staying, a blond woman ran toward me and gave me a hug. “I was hoping I’d run into you!” she said.

It took me only a few seconds to recognize Ellen Meister, whose most recent book is Dorothy Parker Drank Here. She and I had met on Facebook after a mutual friend said that Ellen’s son was going to a colleges my son was considering. That led to an online friendship, a phone call, and, after our wonderful first real time meeting, an invitation to join Ellen’s fabulous online tribe of writers, The Girlfriends Book Club.

I have more examples of these encounters than I could ever list here. The main takeaway for writers is that social media might be something your publisher wants you to do to market books, but that’s not the reason to do it. Instead, focus on the “social” part. You never know who you will meet online, or where that encounter will lead in real life.

The post How One Novelist Was Dragged Out of Her Barn to Embrace Social Media appeared first on Holly Robinson.

Writing is a Risky Business. How Do You Conquer Your Fears?

The year I turned thirty, I nearly died trekking over a mountain pass in Nepal. This was the same 17,769-foot pass through the Annapurna Circuit where, in October 2014, an unexpected snowstorm took the lives of nearly 40 people.

My adventure could have turned out just as badly. I had gone to Nepal to meet up with Nick, a man I hardly knew, but thought I loved. Before leaving, I had done little research and was as stupidly under-prepared as Cheryl Strayed admits to being in her terrific memoir, Wild. We were trekking in March, and by the time we reached Thorung La Pass, the snow was thigh-high on me.

We should have turned around. But, as Jon Krakauer describes so brilliantly in his book, Into Thin Air, people climbing mountains often become so determined to conquer their peaks that common sense falls by the wayside. So on we went, Nick and me, with a ragged band of perhaps fifteen other trekkers from different countries, and one Sherpa who “sort of” knew the way.

I don’t know how we made it. I was terrified, as the clouds gathered and the wind blew up, making it nearly impossible to see more than three feet in front of me. My hands and feet went numb because I had been too idiotic to wear proper clothing. I had wrapped my feet in plastic bags because I had inadequate boots and wore two Yak wool sweaters under a windbreaker because I didn’t own a down jacket.

One man on that trek kept me going, a man in his sixties who had begun this journey back when his wife was still alive and hadn’t made it. He was determined to do it now, despite his age and one bum knee. As we staggered up the mountain through blinding snow, he kept telling me, in gasping high-altitude monosyllables: “One. Step. At. A. Time.”

And that is what I say to myself now, when conquering my fears as I write novels: ONE. STEP. AT. A. TIME.

It’s a raw and risky business, writing fiction. My fellow novelists Kristin Bair O’Keeffe and Lorrie Thomson and I put together a panel on this topic for the 2015 Newburyport Literary Festival, because we wanted to talk about taking risks and conquering real-life fears, and how doing that has translated into lessons we use when writing fiction.

In addition to my Himalayan odyssey, another of my other greatest life lessons was getting divorced and marrying a man with children. I had two children, as did my second husband, and all of them were young—ages 6,7,8, and 9 when we got married. In other words, whereas previously I had gotten through thigh-deep snow one step at a time, now I was thigh-deep in children. They were loud, active, opinionated children, too. As one friend said, “Dinner at your house is louder than any rock concert I’ve ever been to.”

What was I thinking, having so many children? Artists aren’t supposed to have any children! In fact, all of my life—and that includes the year I turned thirty, the year I trekked over that mountain pass—I had envisioned a gypsy existence, one where I traveled solo, wrote, and took a lover now and then, but never became dependent—or depended upon.

And then, seemingly overnight, I had a big white house and four blond heads clamoring for attention. Add to that a dog, a couple of cats, some hamsters and gerbils that always seemed to be escaping, and what chance did I have to write?

Yet, somehow, I wrote: on weekends, when my saint of a husband would get the kids out of the house or tell me to go off to a cheap motel and work on my book. And at night, too, when the kids were asleep, a cup of mint tea or a glass of wine at my elbow.

And here’s the funny thing: I wrote more, much more, after I had children than I did before, even though I had far less time. When I was young and single, I squandered my hours. There was always a concert to go to, or a movie, or maybe I just felt like lying around and watching television. Having a family taught me to manage my time.

More importantly, motherhood taught me the true meaning of unconditional love, and opening myself up to that depth of emotion gave me the courage to start successfully rendering emotions on the page—something I’d held back from doing before, because I thought emotional writing wasn’t literary writing.

The lesson from family life that I carry over to my writing? COMMIT TO YOUR CRAFT, HEART AND SOUL, AND SHARE YOURSELF HONESTLY WITH READERS.

Just one more lesson to share here. This has to do with my sister, a sister I never talk about, and that most people don’t even know existed. I rarely talk about Gail because she died of cystic fibrosis when she was five years old and I was twelve. As in any family that loses a child, ours was shattered.

Now fast forward to my life as the mother and stepmother of four young children. With my second husband, I had passion and parenthood, and yet we didn’t have a child together, and somehow that felt lacking to me. So, at age 42, and with four children already under my roof, I got pregnant again.

And then I got scared. Really scared. By this time, genetic testing was much more advanced, and my husband and I could get tested to see if we were cystic fibrosis carriers. It turns out that I am. The clinicians could rule out some genes for my husband, but not all of them. He could be a carrier, too.

Should I continue with this pregnancy or not? I couldn’t bear the idea of an abortion—not because I don’t believe in it, politically, but because I personally couldn’t do it—and so I had the baby.

I was afraid during much of that pregnancy. But I also realized, during that time, that I have love and support in my life, and that I was resilient. If something was wrong with the baby, I knew I’d cope.

And that, too, is a lesson worth learning as a writer: BE RESILIENT, MOVE FORWARD AND KEEP LEARNING. Whether it’s rejections or bad reviews, lousy sales or your agent drops you, learn from the experience and move forward.

If you want to succeed as a writer, then, here are three life lessons I want to share:

Take it One. Step. At. A. Time. Nobody has ever written an entire novel in day.
Commit your heart and soul to the process, and be honest on the page.
Be resilient, and learn from everything you do. That is as true in writing as it is in everything else you’ll do in this life.

The post Writing is a Risky Business. How Do You Conquer Your Fears? appeared first on Holly Robinson.

One Writer’s Homage to Booksellers, Librarians & Readers

I’m not sure there’s enough wine in the world to launch a new novel without the jitters. Luckily, writers have lots of people cheering us on. I’m not only talking about our mothers and spouses, but about our booksellers, librarians and readers. They’re the ones who make us feel as famous as Kim Kardashian, even when we’re not putting our naked booties on display. (Yes, Kim, a writer’s booty spends a lot of time in the desk chair, so you can bet we’d give you some curvy competition.)

My new novel, Haven Lake, launches on April 7, and you’d think I’d be an old hand at this stuff. I’ve done this many times, with a memoir and other novels. Yet, every writer has a crisis of confidence at book launch time. It’s similar to what parents feel when we drop off our kids at college that first day: Is our baby ready to be independent? How will she get along with others? Will she be laughed at or scorned? Will she be a success or drop out because the competition is too tough?

Launching your first novel is exciting because you don’t know what to expect. It’s a big deal that you’ve published a book at all.

Launching subsequent books is still a big deal—we’re living the dream, right?–but in some ways it’s even more intimidating. All of us know what it feels like to get a bad review. We’ve tasted failure, perhaps. Or maybe we’ve been successful and now we worry that readers will compare our books and find this one lacking. (This is the equivalent of hearing someone say at your class reunion that you’ve really let yourself go).

Or we worry that reviewers, having already found us, will skip reading this book altogether and spend their time on more exciting debut authors. (The equivalent of a husband deciding he wants a trophy wife.)

Writers worry about sales when we launch our books, too, of course. We know that our publisher will drop us like hot granite blocks with poisonous snakes curled around them if our numbers don’t measure up to our advances.

Fortunately, there are book lovers aplenty, and they’re not thinking about any of those things. They’re simply thinking: “Oh, good! Something new to read!” Maybe they pick up our books for the covers, or for the descriptions on the back. Or because a friend knows our mother. Who knows? We just feel lucky when readers are willing to share their time with us, when there are so many demands on everyone’s time: work, kids, NetFlix, and those seven ways to make your husband happy in bed you keep seeing in magazines at the hair salon.

Our best friends are the booksellers. They put themselves out there every day to put readers and writers together, matching interests better than eHarmony. I have always depended on independent bookstores for inspiration, whether I want to start reading something new or want to find a book that inspires my writing. Some of my longtime favorites:

The Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Cambridge, MA, where I found my first writing group through a notice pinned on a bulletin board

The Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA, where I first discovered one of my favorite mystery authors, C.J. Box

City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, CA, where I once heard a guy read poetry he’d created on a typewriter as people in the audience shouted out their favorite phrases to him

R.J. Julia Bookstore in Madison, CT, where a woman told me about her Army father raising parrots in their basement after I read from my memoir about my dad being a gerbil czar

Jabberwocky Bookshop in Newburyport, MA, where I love doing my book launches because the owner, Sue Little, is not only my good friend, but the mother of my son’s best friend, too.

Buttonwood Books and Toys in Cohasset, MA because they paired me with fabulous mystery author Hallie Ephron for a supper event on April 7

In addition to the booksellers, we writers owe librarians big time. They steer readers toward our books, too, and host us for talks even when it’s snowing so hard you can barely see to walk to the library. (Yes, I mean YOU, Massachusetts.)

Librarians also organize and host book clubs where readers can engage in discussions so lively that they often extend past library hours and, yes, into our local bars. (See? There’s not enough wine in the world…)

I would be even more nervous about launching Haven Lake next week, for instance, if I hadn’t had the good luck to know Elizabeth MacGregor, Book Club Leader Extraordinaire at the gorgeous Flint Public Library in Middleton, MA. Elizabeth and her “Bookettes” have been meeting for over a dozen years, and these enthusiastic readers received early copies of Haven Lake courtesy of my publisher. They were gracious enough to meet with me and talk about the book. I can’t thank them enough for such thoughtful comments, and especially for how they discussed my characters as if they were people they actually knew. (Pictured above: me with the Bookettes–I’m in the blue jacket–so fun!)

Writers write because we want our stories to come alive. We hope to transport readers to completely different worlds, to places where they’ll experience strong emotions, fresh thoughts and new perspectives. We couldn’t do that without fellow book lovers helping us spread the word about our writing.

So, to you, booksellers, librarians and readers: thank you for inspiring our stories and giving us the confidence to commit them to the page. We couldn’t do it without you.

The post One Writer’s Homage to Booksellers, Librarians & Readers appeared first on Holly Robinson.

How You Can Create Your Own Lucky Breaks as a Writer

I was walking with my kids on the beach when my father-in-law leaned over the balcony to shout, “Your agent’s on the phone! He has a book deal!”

Was that my lucky break as a novelist? Not exactly. Remember Hillary Clinton’s concession speech after losing her presidential bid? She said that, although she hadn’t broken through the glass ceiling, “it’s got about 18 million cracks in it.” Crossing the threshold from unpublished to published author was a similar journey for me: I had to keep pounding on that door until, one crack at a time, it gave way. There was no one lucky break. It was more like a hundred of them.

You, too, can publish your work, if you’re willing to make your own lucky breaks as a writer:

Write. Rewrite. Repeat. Whether you’re intent on traditional or indie publishing, that manuscript had better be polished until it gleams.
Find contests to keep you writing—and on deadline. My first lucky break was a local area arts festival that was running a writing contest. I had just read an essay by Joyce Maynard in Redbook magazine, something about dating after divorce, and I was inspired to write an essay about my own divorce called “My Two Husbands,” revealing how important it was to me that my first husband was still part of my life even after I’d remarried. I entered the essay in that local literary contest and, when it won Honorable Mention, I had the nerve to send it to Ladies’ Home Journal magazine. They bought it, and my career as a magazine writer was launched. My experience as a nonfiction writer allowed me to develop discipline, hone my writing skills and begin building a platform as a writer. And guess what? By the time my first novel was published, my editor at Ladies’ Home Journal had become the books editor. She reviewed the novel in their pages as a “great summer read” and helped boost my book sales—which helped me land a contract for my next novel.
Network with Professionals. You can hardly throw a stick these days without hitting a writers’ conference in progress. Take advantage of the ones in your area. Before publishing my first book, I attended The Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Vermont, and it was like a crash course on craft. There were classes and lectures on everything from how to find an agent to how to plot a novel, and there were opportunities to meet agents and editors on site. An added perk was that I also met the faculty, made up of writers whose books I’d read and admired. When I sold my first novel, one of those big-name writers was kind enough to read the book and give me a stunning blurb.
Find Critique Partners Who are Honest, Not Brutal. I wouldn’t be the writer I am today without my critique partners. I was in a workshop for many years with three other women who helped me shape my drafts. Even now I swap manuscripts with savvy writer friends who offer me comments on everything from overall story structure to deepening my characters and fine-tuning my sentences.
Choose an Agent Who Believes in Your Work as Much as You Do. Probably the best way to find an agent is through networking with other writers. I found my previous agent, as well as my current agent, by asking friends for referrals. While there are many agents out there, all of their personalities and ways of working with writers are unique. Don’t just go with a big name. Your agent will be a business partner, but he or she should still be a partner you can talk to openly, and whose sensibilities match your own. This isn’t about hooking up. This relationship is meant to last for years.
If You Get Feedback, Use It. One of the lucky breaks I missed in my publishing career came early on: two different editors gave solid feedback on my very first novel, suggesting strategies for rewriting it. If I did revise the novel, they said they’d be happy to take another look at it. By that time, I had already received so many rejections on that first manuscript that I was sick of it and had moved on to a new novel. In retrospect, I should have taken the advice of those editors and rewritten the book—I might have published much sooner if I’d done so.
Be Nice to Everyone. Writing may be a solitary pursuit, but publishing definitely is not, whether you’re self-publishing or going the traditional route. Mind your manners and be gracious to everyone if you want lucky breaks to come your way. I can’t tell you how many editorial assistants I’ve worked with who have gone on to become full-fledged senior editors, and believe me, they will remember you if you’re nice—or if you’re not. That’s called Writing Karma, and it’s powerful stuff.

The post How You Can Create Your Own Lucky Breaks as a Writer appeared first on Holly Robinson.

Finally, I Can Raise Sheep—Sort Of

 

I didn’t always love sheep. When I was growing up, my mother kept a small flock in a field next to our house, and our sheep did not exactly stand out as intelligent, or even interesting.

When the sheep shearer arrived, all he had to do was sit them down on their hindquarters and the sheep went so limp, they might as well have been shot dead. They were comical looking besides, like upturned wooly sofas. Plus, none of our sheep ever went rogue. Sheep try not to stand out as individuals.

As a rebellious teen, therefore, I related more to our horses, whose individual personalities were so definite that each animal had its own greeting for me when I entered the barn, and to our stubborn goats, who were smart enough to open gates if you didn’t tie them shut.

However, when I finally had the chance to travel to England in my early thirties and visit my brother, who lives outside of London, I fell in love with the sight of sheep grazing the sparkling emerald fields as we walked the footpaths and drove the narrow lanes. I loved the Zen way the ewes had of moving together through the fields, like clouds on skinny legs. And the antics of the lambs had me pulling out my camera so often, my brother threatened to dump me out of the car and leave me in one of those fields. (The photos of sheep accompanying this post are his, by the way.)

 

 

Since then, I have learned that sheep are smart animals, but in their own way. They move together in flocks because their only defense is to present a united front to predators. And, when it comes to food, they are exceedingly clever: for instance, one flock in England was observed rolling across hoof-proof cattle grids to raid the gardens of a neighboring village. And sheep have been known to eat plants with medicinal properties to make themselves feel better when they’re ill.

In one journal article published in Nature, researchers reported that sheep recognize the faces of as many as 50 animals in their own flocks, and can remember them for up to two years if those sheep are moved. Sheep also have excellent spatial abilities and memories, too. They navigate mazes every bit as well as rats, whose intelligence is often applauded.

So, sheep, I apologize for having slighted you, especially since I have recently taken up knitting. Now one of my favorite pastimes is visiting sheep farms, where I can see the animals who give me the wool I love to transform into scarves and sweaters.

Lately, I have started to fantasize about raising sheep of my own. For this reason, one of the main characters in my new novel, HAVEN LAKE, has her own thriving flock of Icelandic sheep. I could only create her with the help of real-life shepherdess and artist Wendy Ketchum of Schoolhouse Farm in Tamworth, New Hampshire, who was so generous in sharing her experiences with me.

The world is a better place for having sheep in it. If I can’t have any in my back yard, I can at least have fun raising them on the page.

The post Finally, I Can Raise Sheep—Sort Of appeared first on Holly Robinson.

Author Rachael Herron Talks about Being a Terrible Teen, Love and the Inspiration for Her New Novel

 

One of my favorite things about being a writer is having the chance to meet other writers whose books I admire. I probably admire few books as much as I do Splinters of Light, my new friend Rachael Herron’s powerful, poignant, and surprisingly comic novel inspired by a People magazine article about the impact of early-onset Alzheimer’s on a woman and her family. In the hands of another writer, this topic could be dreary and depressing, but Rachael spins a story of resilience and love that leaves you believing in the healing power of family and forgiveness. Run, don’t walk, to your nearest bookstore or online shopping site for books, and buy Splinters of Light now for a reading experience you won’t soon forget.  Meanwhile, here’s a look at how Rachael works–she’s a prolific author of romance novels, women’s fiction, memoir and essays–and a sneak peek at her novel-in-progress.

Q. Give us a peek at your workspace. What do you see from your writing chair? (I’m imagining lots of animals milling about, baskets of yarn, an unfinished sweater.) Do you have any special foods or drinks that keep your butt in the chair as you write? How about music?

I recently found the desk of my dreams, a rolltop behemoth with cunning pigeon-holes and drawers for everything. I literally have a drawer for lip balm, one for beach glass, one for hair ties (all very important in the writing process, of course). I do have baskets of yarn around and usually have a cat or two on my lap, but what keeps me in my chair is having nothing else in front of my gaze but my computer and a mug of coffee (with cream: coffee without cream is a fate worse than death). Moving my desk away from the window was one of the best things I ever did for myself, productivity-wise. My office faces the street, and the street I live on is colorful. I get to dial 911 (my other work number) at least once a month, so facing nothing but my computer screen is best.

Q. Splinters of Light is both one of the most joyful and one of the most devastating novels I’ve ever read, partly because you do such a wonderful job of tapping into the worst fear we all have as parents: that we will somehow fail our children. What was the inspiration for this novel, and for the brave, wonderful, and touchingly resilient character of Nora Glass?

The inspiration for the novel came from, of all places, a People magazine article about a young teenaged boy taking care of his mother who’d been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. This was before Still Alice, before many of us had ever heard of this disease, and I was transfixed by the thought of a parent having to teach their child how to be an adult so long before it was time. Nora herself comes from a good mix of my sisters and my mother, the strongest, bravest women I’ve known.

Q. You do a stellar job of writing from the point of view of a resentful but loving teenager in Splinters of Light, too. Was that difficult?

Should I admit it was easy? I’m forty-two, but I was a terrible teenager. When I was turning seventeen, Ellie’s age in the book, I thought I hated my mother. I couldn’t stand to be in her presence. Everything she said grated on my nerves, and I couldn’t understand how we could possibly be related. Of course, when I turned nineteen or twenty, she suddenly “became” much smarter and more interesting (go figure!), and by the time I was twenty-five, she was my best friend and stayed that until the day she died. I really regret what a pain in the ass I was to a phenomenal woman. Ellie is, in a small way, an apology for that (and maybe a beacon of hope to mothers of teen girls—they do snap out of it).

Q. I know that you juggle your writing with your job as a 911 fire/medical dispatcher. What’s your typical workday like? I mean, really, what are your superpowers? We’re envious!

I work 48-hour shifts at the firehouse (we sleep in turns when it’s quiet, just like the firefighters), so my typical workday is a lot longer than most. I dispatch my fire crews to blazes and give CPR instructions to those who need it (okay, it would be hard to give the instructions to them; I instruct the callers how to do it, where to push, how fast to go) while directing the ambulance where to go. I get to help birth babies on really good days. And I’m constantly inspired by what love sounds like. I hear pure love and constant hope in the voices of mothers and daughters and uncles and even perfect strangers, every day. My favorite call of all time was a young man at a family party who did CPR on his 102-year-old great-grandmother while his whole family called out encouragement. She was 102! And her whole family wanted her to live. They knew it was too early for her to go! How wonderful is that? That’s the kind of love that creeps into my books.

Q. You’re originally from New Zealand. How did you end up living in the U.S.? And what do you think being an “outlander” contributes to the fiction you write that’s now set here in the U.S.?

Actually, I’ve always been a half-and-halfer. My mom was Kiwi, my dad an Arizonan. I have dual citizenship, and I had the New Zealand accent until I was seven (I still remember embarrassing myself in first grade for asking for the cello-tape). Living on the imaginary border gave me a really good place to stand growing up. My mother never became an American, and national holidays like Thanksgiving were celebrated, of course. But we also pulled the thrippence out of the flaming plum duff on Christmas and I knew more about Maori myth than Native American. My parents let us choose our identity, and I’m happy to say that all three of us girls are proud of both heritages.

Q. Prior to Splinters of Light, you authored a memoir. Was the process of writing nonfiction very different from your fiction writing process? Which do you prefer?

Nonfiction is so much easier! You’re limited to the truth (or as close as you can come to it, years later) so the only big choice is how you frame the storytelling. For that book, I chose to look at my life as seen through the sweaters I’d knitted, from the first one I attempted at eleven in an attempt to bond with my entrepreneurial father to the dress I failed to knit for my wedding. I love creative nonfiction, but I have to confess, while novels are more difficult, I find a bigger sense of satisfaction in their completion.

Q. It seems like these days every writer is told to cultivate a “platform” and a “brand.” As a writer who previously wrote a series of successful romance novels as well as a memoir before producing Pack Up the Moon and Splinters of Light, both of which I would describe as “literary” or “women’s fiction” (if I had to use typical publishing categories), how do you describe your work whenever someone asks what you write?

Oh, god. I never know what to say. Writing literary women’s fiction has always been my goal—and what I’m probably best at—so I lead with that. But then I usually fade out and mumble something lame like, “I guess I write mainstream? And, um, romance. And um, memoir. Um. Do you need more coffee?”

 

Q. With all of the different types of writing you’ve done, you must have met some challenges and hurdles along the way. What has kept you going through times of self doubt?

Publishing is not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure. Hard times come fast and often, but two things have kept me going. First, I’ve always known this was what I was meant to do, even before I was actually doing it. I spent my teens and twenties yearning to write and not getting the work done. Writing is the only thing that settles my soul, whether it’s fiction or just a private journal entry. I could never let that part of myself go. Second, my writer friends have been my rock. The most important thing for a new writer to do (besides writing) is to make writer friends who are at the same stage in their careers. Nothing is more valuable.

Q. Did getting an MFA help you on your writing journey? Would you recommend that path to other aspiring writers?

Nope, I rarely recommend it even though I don’t regret getting mine. It was lovely to be in the ivory tower for those two years. But what I needed to learn about writing I didn’t learn there. School can’t teach you how to finish a book. It can’t teach you how to find your core story. It can’t teach you how to get back up and start over after your first publisher drops you. It can’t teach you how to cultivate real, rich relationships with your readers. I only learned how to do this by writing, every day, for many years after I got that MFA.

Q. What sorts of books do you choose to read when you’re just chilling out?

I like to avoid my own genre when I’m actively writing within it (nothing like comparing your first draft to the finished draft of the new Sue Monk Kidd!) so lately I’ve been bingeing on British crime writers like Tana French, Sharon Bolton, and S.J. Watson. The darker, the better.

Q. Tell us about your next novel!

Taking Care is about a woman who, when she learns her deceased husband hid a whole family from her, determines to make that family her own. It’s still in early second draft, but I love this feeling of being so deep in the writing. I’m crazy about these characters.

Q. If you could list three unbreakable rules for writers, what would they be?

Write as much as you can every day. Even if that’s just a sentence. Write.
Read. Read every day, read everything. Don’t be snobby.
Be generous and gracious, giving of yourself, your knowledge, your time, and your words. In this profession, what goes around comes around in an almost insta-karma way. Be good.

The post Author Rachael Herron Talks about Being a Terrible Teen, Love and the Inspiration for Her New Novel appeared first on Holly Robinson.