Meredith Allard's Blog, page 31

Hello, Good-bye: Changes Are Good for the Soul

One of the benefits of living in the 112 degrees of Las Vegas is the conservatory at the Bellagio Hotel. At least it’s cool in the hotels!

I recently finished my first year as a doctoral student in the Teacher Education program at UNLV. I even ended up with a B+ in my Statistics class, which for me is like an A+ for anyone else. For someone who has had to retake every math class she’s ever taken in her life, finishing the first time with a B+ was a definite personal best.

Recently, I made another change as well, which was resigning my full-time teaching position. Where at first I was going to apply for a leave of absence which would allow me to return to my position after a year, I realized that, when all is said and done, I’m not going back to traditional K-12 classroom teaching. Was it hard to leave behind the career that paid my rent and other assorted bills for the last 20 years? Well, it was a hard decision from the standpoint that I’ve made my living as a classroom teacher since 1994, and yet it was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made. It was time to move on. I just knew it. I had felt it in my gut for several years now. I knew I had gone as far as I could as a K-12 classroom teacher, and I needed some new challenge. It took me a few years to figure out what my next line of action would be, but I figured it out, and when it was time to go I knew it. Where normally leaving behind the job where I made my living would cause me no end of stress or worries, I found myself surprisingly calm as I made the decision to resign, which only further proved to me that I was making the right choice. I am still all in praise of day jobs, but I also believe that the day job should be one that makes your heart sing. There’s no worse feeling dragging yourself somewhere every day where you don’t want to go, and no better feeling than giving yourself a chance to do something different.

I thought I would feel more nostalgic than I did as I packed up my classroom. I had materials from all grade levels to weed through since in 20 years I’ve taught everything from kindergarten through high school, as well as a number of writing workshops for adults. And while some of the files I went through brought back a lot of good memories from some amazing years teaching great kids, mainly I felt relief that I was finally getting the change I craved. I gave away my reading books, posters, and teacher guides to a friend who is switching grade levels, and I recycled my paper files. It was like that feeling you get when you finally clean out the clutter from your closet—as though I felt physically lighter without the unnecessary baggage. I wasn’t particularly emotional when I handed in my keys for the last time. For the first time in a long time, I was looking forward to the changes and the challenges in the future. To me, that was yet another sign that I was headed in the right direction. For years, I had held onto that teaching job as though it was the only thing between me and financial oblivion. It’s amazing what a little faith can do to your outlook.

If you’re not familiar with Sarah Rudell Beach’s website Left-Brain Buddha, I highly recommend it. She talks about living with mindfulness, which is something I’m struggling to do every day—some days with more success than others, but it’s the intention that counts, right? In her post “Leaving the Classroom,” Sarah talks about her own journey leaving the classroom after 17 years of teaching. And like Sarah, it’s not that I’m no longer teaching, but simply that I’ll be teaching differently. Instead of one full-time job I’ll be working as a Graduate Assistant at UNLV, where one of my duties will be teaching a class called Teaching Writing Secondary School, which is right up my alley since that’s what I’m studying for my degree. I’ll also be teaching over the Internet, which is very interesting to me since I think, based on what I’ve seen as a public school teacher, that technology is the way we have to go if we’re going to capture the attention and curiosity of our 21st century students. I read in Stratosphere, Michael Fullan’s book about technology in schools, that we’re trying to teach 21st century students using a 20th century model. I couldn’t agree more. Through my studies at UNLV, I hope to find a way to prepare preservice teachers (fancy-speak for university students studying education) to become effective writing teachers. So, no, I’m not leaving teaching at all. I’m simply hoping to reach a larger audience now. My goal is to help others realize how strong writing skills can help us, all of us, not just those of us who want to write for a living.

I know the power of writing, as many of you do. I count myself among those who believe that writing helped to keep me sane at various points of my life. Writing is more than any essay (though no one could deny the importance of being able to write a well-argued, well-organized essay). Writing is big, and it should be treated, and taught, as such. I’m excited at the prospect of being part of that conversation. The freedom I’ll have due to my change in jobs will only give me more time to pursue my studies.

An another note, for you Loving Husband Trilogy fans out there, never fear. “Down Salem Way” is not forgotten. For those of you who have been contacting me with questions about the story’s publication, thank you so much for your messages, and I do apologize. I had optimistically said Spring 2015 for the release date, but the time came and went and the story isn’t ready to be published. “Down Salem Way” is high on my priority list, and, drum roll please…the new release date is Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2016. What a better day for a new James and Sarah Wentworth story, a tale of eternal love? See, even with all these career changes, writing fiction is too much a part of who I am to be left aside. I think that goes back to the old writers’ adage that if you want to write badly enough you’ll make time to do it no matter what. I firmly believe that.

Filed under: News, Spirituality, Tidbits, Writing Tagged: Down Salem Way, Loving Husband Trilogy, pursuing your dreams, writing

The Courage to Let Our Light Shine

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

                        ~Marianne Williamson

I often spend my Sunday mornings Super Soul Sunday, which is how I’ve been spending my Sundays for as long as the show has been on OWN. I remember once the show about The Shadow Effect, a book by Debbie Ford, which is about acknowledging the darkness within ourselves so we can bask in the light. I was particularly struck by the quote about our deepest fear from Marianne Williamson.

I’ve read A Return to Love, the book from where the quote comes, but recently I realized that the quote spoke directly to the part in me that has been struggling the most lately—the part that feels like it needs to dim the light I have been striving for years to ignite. Williamson says, “Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.” I had what Oprah calls an “Aha! moment” as I realized that I’ve been playing small to make those around me feel better.

A friend at work was so happy for me when a local magazine featured an article about me that she posted a link to the article on our school’s message board. As soon as I saw her post, I thought, “Oh no. This isn’t going to be good.” I learned a long time ago that people aren’t always happy when good things happen to someone else. When I was still living in California, an article about my writing and publishing appeared in The Los Angeles Times, and I told a few teachers I worked with about it. I thought it was cool, that’s all. I had worked hard to get some notice for The Copperfield Review and now there was an article about it in a major newspaper. The next day I heard from a friend that the talk in the staff room was about me: “She thinks she’s so special now?” As an intensely private person, I shuddered internally at the knowledge that people were speaking negatively about me, especially over something I meant to be positive. That’s when I slipped the dimmer over my light and stopped sharing anything about my writing or publishing successes with anyone except a trusted few.

The story hasn’t changed. After my friend posted the link to the article on the school message board, a few teachers went to her with the same “Who does she think she is?” One teacher congratulated me, but otherwise it was silence (crickets) from the rest of the staff. I tried to explain to someone that if I’ve had writing success it’s because of my life choices. Most people marry and have children, but I didn’t marry and I don’t have human children (my children say meow and sit on the keyboard while I’m writing). I can spend my free time however I choose, and I choose to write. In retrospect, I realize my response doesn’t really work since there are plenty of people with full-time jobs, spouses, and children who manage to pursue their dreams. But at the time I thought I could explain away why I was receiving attention for my writing.

Suddenly, I began slinking around, my head hung low, avoiding eye contact with anyone. I was embarrassed (again) that anyone had been talking about me. Finally (I’m a little slow sometimes) it occurred to me—why am I the one trying to hide? What have I done wrong? Does the fact that I’ve stayed stubbornly true to my dreams mean I have to feel embarrassed about it for the rest of my life? Seeing Super Soul Sunday simply expounded the “light bulb moment” I already had. Why do I feel the need to explain away my successes when I don’t expect anyone else to explain away their successes? I’ve been letting others make me feel small, but that’s my fault, not theirs. People can have whatever reactions they want. It’s up to me to remember to, as Marianne Williamson says, “make manifest the glory of God that is within us.” When I’m writing, I’m manifesting the glory of God that is within me. It’s what I’m called to do. No apologies required.

I’ve decided that I will no longer hide from my successes. I’ve earned every single one with years of hard work. Whenever I’m tempted to cower from public acknowledgement of that hard work, I’ll remember Williamson’s words: “And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Amen.

Filed under: Spirituality, Writing Tagged: Marianne Williamson, OWN, Super Soul Sunday, writing

How to Get Published

A few weeks ago I was invited to speak at Writers Block, a group of young writers who are studying the craft of writing. When I asked what the group wanted to learn about, the answer came back overwhelmingly that they wanted to learn more about the publishing side of writing. It took some thinking to figure out how to condense what I’ve learned about publishing into an hour workshop, but I managed to come up with a few thoughts. Here are some of the ideas I shared about writing for publication. There’s nothing earth shattering here, but I think the young writers found it useful because it opened their eyes, perhaps for the first time, to the fact that writing for publication is hard work.

How to Get Published

To Begin:

Write something wonderful that someone will want to publish. This sounds obvious, but oddly it’s the step that some writers skip over in their rush to be published. Yes, wonderful is subjective, but if you have a strong grasp of the art and craft of writing, then you’re more likely to win fans with your work. It also helps to learn to be the best judge of your own work.
Find your own voice and your own perspective. What do you have to offer that no one else does? How are you different or unique? That’s your strength. Use it.
Read a lot. If you don’t like to read, then writing is not for you. Read stories similar to the ones you want to write. Read about writing. Read about writers. Read the classics. Read your favorite genre. Read the cereal box. Read everything.
Be sure to proofread your work—check for spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. Don’t rely on spell check. I can’t stress this enough—sloppy writing will get your work rejected as fast as editors can hit the delete button. Yes, I speak from experience (as both the editor, and, I’m sure, as the writer whose work evaporated into cyberspace).
Have someone else (or many someone elses) read your writing and listen to what they have to say. Often, as writers we get stuck in our own heads and we forget that the point is to communicate with others. Just because someone offers a criticism doesn’t mean we have to listen to it, but if more than one person has an idea for improvement, it might be worth seeing if there’s something to the suggestion.
Read your writing out loud to listen for the music of your language. Remember, we write for the ear, not for the eye. You could have the most perfect looking story or poem—sharp margins, professional looking layout, lovely font—but if the words don’t sound right then they’re not right.
It takes time, sometimes a lot of time, to create something publishable. Give yourself time to grow into the writer you want to be.
First drafts are never publishable (or usually even second drafts or third drafts or fourth drafts…).
If you’re not willing to take the time to make sure your writing is the very best it can be before you send it off for publication, then writing is not for you.

Then:

When you’re convinced that your writing is the absolute best it can be, you’re ready to start submitting to journals, magazines, and newspapers.

Figure out what genre your piece belongs in (Is it action adventure? Science fiction? Historical?) and research journals, magazines, and newspapers that publish the type of story you’ve written. God bless the Internet. When I first started writing, we had to do things the old-timey way—we had to actually look through books! Now a list of literary journals are just an Internet search away.
When you have your list of journals, read their submission guidelines carefully and follow those guidelines exactly as written. Again, I can’t stress this enough. You want to give your writing the best chance of being published. Editors receive many, many submissions, and often they’re looking for easy reasons to reject a piece. To make your work stand out from the crowd, show the editors that you’re a professional writer and you take your submission seriously.
Be prepared for rejections. Sorry, but it’s part of the process. If you don’t have the stomach to deal with the rejections, then writing is not for you. If it makes you feel better, you can find many examples of famous authors who received hundreds, sometimes thousands of rejection letters until they were finally published. Jack London was rejected many times, as was J.K. Rowling, as were countless others.
No matter what, keep submitting. It took me four years to get my first piece published. If I had given up three and a half years into it I never would have become a published writer.

However:

If you’ve written a novel, then the process is a little different. If you want to pursue traditional publishing one route is to find an agent who will represent your novel to the publishing houses.

You can find agents the same way you find literary journals and magazines—by looking them up online.
You need to finish your novel before you start contacting agents because if agents are interested then they’ll often ask to see the whole manuscript.
Like with submitting to journals or magazines, you need to be prepared for rejections. If the rejections will deter you, then, once again, writing is not for you.
To catch the attention of an agent, you’ll need to write a great query letter. Here’s an article from Writer’s Digest about how to write the perfect query letter .

If you have more of a go-getter’s heart, you may want to look into indie publishing.

Indie-publishing is a great option for writers these days. Many best selling novels are indie-published.
You can create your own e-books on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. You can also publish your books to BN, iTunes, and Kobo. The entire process takes about five minutes per retailer. The directions are easy to understand. You can also create your own paperbacks on Amazon’s CreateSpace or on Lulu. Again, the directions are pretty easy. Best of all, it’s free!
If you’re self-publishing, then everything that would normally fall on the publisher (cover design, interior layout, editing, marketing, etc.) falls onto the author. You have to make doubly sure you’re putting out a quality product if you’re indie-publishing so readers will take you seriously.
The Creative Penn ( www.thecreativepenn.com ) is a great resource for writers who want to publish their work independently.

Once you’re published you have to learn the ins and outs of book marketing and publicity and you have to deal with the naysayers. You need a strong constitution to be a writer. It takes courage to put your work out there. I think the young people I spoke to were surprised at how hard it is to be a writer. I think they thought, as I did when I first started, that being a writer meant sitting at your desk scribbling out your crazy ideas and somehow all the other things (getting published, getting publicity, hitting the best seller list) just magically happened.

I wanted the young people to understand that becoming a writer, as in making a career for yourself, takes time. Even the indie authors who are hitting the best seller lists these days are often people who have been writing for years, and I include myself in that list. I’ve been at this since 1994 (21 years now), and it took me four years to get my first publication—a short story in a small literary journal. Then I wrote three novels before my fourth (Her Dear & Loving Husband) hit the best seller list in 2011. Now over 200,000 copies of the Loving Husband Trilogy have been bought or downloaded worldwide.

Was it worth it? All those rejection letters, all those worries that no one would ever read my stories, all those times I very nearly gave up writing for good? Of course it was worth it. If someone had said to me that it was going to take 20 years to get everything I wanted as a writer, I probably would have said, “No thanks. It’s going to take too long.” But the 20 years passed anyway, as time will, and because I didn’t give in I ended up where I wanted to be. That’s really the lesson I wanted the young writers to take away. Don’t quit. Not ever. If you have a vision, a calling, whatever it is, keep going. It will be worth it in the end, no matter how long it takes to get there.

 

Filed under: Publishing, Writing Tagged: indie publishing, publishing, writing, writing for publication

Remembering the Joys of Writing Historical Fiction

I found myself in need of a reminder about why I love to write historical fiction. Lately, with everything else I have to do, I’ve come to realize how much more work writing historical fiction is than other genres. As I’ve been digging myself out from under books and articles about Victorian England for my new novel, I realized that this is my first foray into writing a completely historical story in ten years. That can’t be right, I thought. I write historical fiction. It’s in my tag-line, isn’t it? Then I remembered that I added the word (Usually) so I felt better. After counting on my fingers, I saw that, yes indeed, it has been ten years since I wrote a novel that was completely set in the past.

I began writing historical fiction in 1994 with my first novel, the American Civil War story My Brother’s Battle, which I worked on until 2000 (with massive rewrites in 2012). I wrote my second novel, Victory Garden, about the woman’s suffrage movement and World War I, between 2001 and 2003. From 2003 to 2005 I wrote Woman of Stones, a Biblical novella. Then, starting somewhere around 2005, I underwent a period of writer’s remorse. I was getting a few pieces published here and there in literary magazines, but I wasn’t getting anywhere with my novels and I was frustrated. The truth is, I didn’t write much except for journaling and grocery lists until 2009, and four years of not writing for me is a sad time, indeed. I floundered a bit during those years, not really sure what I was supposed to be doing with myself. If I’m not supposed to be writing, then what?

Here it is–the cover for my new novel due out this fall.

The writing muse returned in 2009 when I came up with the idea for a 300 year old vampire mourning his lost human wife. The spark that became the Loving Husband Trilogy reminded me how important writing was to me, and it was a fortunate coincidence that the indie author revolution had taken off by the time Her Dear & Loving Husband was ready to be published in 2011. I spent four years working on the Loving Husband Trilogy, and while the history of the Salem Witch Trials, the Trail of Tears, and the Japanese-American internments during World War II are an important part of the stories, the main story between James and Sarah was set in the present day. My following novel, That You Are Here, is set entirely in present-day Portland, Oregon. I wasn’t surprised when I knew that my next novel would be set in Victorian England. It’s based on an idea I’ve been kicking around for about 15 years. What I am surprised to find is that writing historical fiction is a little harder these days. I still love it, but I found I needed to give myself a little pep talk about why I love writing historical fiction.

My love for writing historical fiction stems from the simple fact that I love history. I think my interest started in high school when I had a cute young guy as my history teacher—I made sure to pay extra special attention in class. But my interest in history outlasted my 10th grade year, and in college I even considered becoming a history major. I’m fascinated by history because, though we can look back to see how the pieces fit together to create the picture of who we are today, there is also a sense of “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” I’m always amazed to learn about these people from the past who on the surface seem so different from us today—in their dress, their speech, their beliefs, their scientific knowledge—and yet they aren’t at all different in their hopes and dreams.

There is something fulfilling about writing historical fiction that I haven’t found in any other genre. First because I get to indulge in my own interest and learn about different periods that caught my attention, and second because historical fiction helps to make history more palatable for those who might be bored by nonfiction accounts. In these fictional snapshots, I can take one moment in time and flesh it out, add characters, both real and imagined, show their dress, their manners, and the events that happened then. Through writing historical fiction, I have been able to imagine life in Salem during the witch hunts, Tennessee during the Cherokee removal, California in the Manzanar Relocation Camp, Biblical Jerusalem, New York City in the 1910s, and now Victorian England. For someone who loves history as much as I do, the opportunity to write about these different periods, or any historical period, is a blessing. It is fun, after all, to discover interesting little details to share with readers, and it’s even more fun to immerse myself in the period through television, movies, documentaries, books, museums, and music. When I write historical fiction I feel like a time traveler with one foot in the present and another in the past.

Yes, that’s right. Writing historical fiction is fun above all else. I remember now that whatever time it takes to complete the research is set off by the enjoyment of finding a special fact or tidbit that adds life to the story. I had forgotten. Sharing these snapshots in time with others is one of my great joys, and through historical fiction I hope to help others develop their own love for history. If I can prompt someone’s interest in a certain time period, then I’ve done my job.

Have I said how much I love writing historical fiction?

Filed under: Historical Fiction, When It Rained at Hembry Castle, Writing Tagged: historical fiction, writing, writing historical fiction

How Do You Handle Negative Book Reviews? You Trust, That’s What You Do.

Like everything else with writing and publishing, there are a lot of opinions about how to handle negative book reviews. Here’s one from Digital Book World, one from Write to Done, and my personal favorite from Joe Konrath. I love Konrath’s advice of just ignore them. In my case, I don’t read them at all.

You read that correctly. I don’t read negative reviews of my books. I don’t argue with anyone’s right to dislike my work, and I don’t argue with anyone’s right to share their dislike. I certainly don’t like every book I read. As an author, I have the right to choose what kind of energy I want to take in, and I choose to surround myself with positive energy that supports my vision. Yes, I know…that’s a little on the woo woo side. Let me try to be more practical.

First of all, negative reviews aren’t always a bad thing, and there’s truth to the adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I think the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon is a great example. I’ve never seen a book with so many negative reviews (there are thousands of them), and yet it’s become one of the best selling books of all time. If anything, the negativity fueled the phenomenon rather than quelled it because it made people curious. There was a time when writers were told that negative reviews were the kiss of death for their books, and maybe some people still believe that, but I’ve seen many books sell well after negative reviews.

It’s not only the number of reviews you have that matter, but the type of reviews. Not all reviews are created equal. A five star review that says “Great Book!” is okay, but a five star review where readers go into some detail about why they liked the book can be very helpful. It’s the same with one star reviews. One star reviews where readers state why they didn’t like the book are fine. Really, they’re fine. It’s not realistic to expect that everyone who reads your book will like it. People have different tastes, that’s all. Then there are the one star reviews that come from a desire to be snarky. I blame Simon Cowell and the Real Housewives for making insolence something people aspire to. Still, I trust readers, and I believe they can tell the difference between honest reviews and mean-spirited reviews. They can tell if someone is simply sharing their dislike of a book or being mean for the fun of it. And don’t forget those entertaining reviews that comment on the timeliness of the shipping or the condition of the product. Just the other day I was scanning the reviews for a book I wanted to buy and there was a one star review because the book arrived in four days instead of two. I bought the book, in case you were wondering.

I understand why writers feel so hurt when they read criticism of their work. I used to be hypersensitive about such criticism myself. Creative writing classes in college were hard for me because there was an unnecessary sting in the feedback from other students. I thought the point of writers workshop was to help each other, not to hurt each other, and I didn’t understand the meanness in the other students’ critiques and I didn’t find those classes useful. Then when I began The Copperfield Review nearly 15 years ago, I received a number of anonymous e-mails that put down the stories Copperfield published. I guessed at the time that the e-mails were from disgruntled writers we had chosen not to publish, but I still let the negativity bother me. Around the same time my first novel, My Brother’s Battle, was published through Xlibris (don’t ask), and someone, also anonymous, asked how I could put such drivel into the world. Again, most likely a disgruntled submitter, or maybe even a legitimate naysayer, who knows, but it got to me.

When Her Dear & Loving Husband was published in 2011, I was known by exactly zero people. I read every review that popped up because I was fascinated by these total strangers who took the time to say things about my book. After a while, I began to realize that the reviews—both good and bad—weren’t about me or even my book. I know that sounds odd, but I believe that reviews have more to do with the reviewer than the reviewed. The Write to Done article says as much. If you give two people the same book and one loves it and one hates it, is that about the book or about the people reading the book? When we read, all we have is ourselves—our personalities, our perspectives, our likes, our dislikes, our interests, our emotions, our imaginations—and all of those traits come into play when we read. Sometimes that works in favor of our books and sometimes it doesn’t. Besides, haven’t you noticed how whenever someone writes negative reviews online, whether it’s for books, restaurants, or whatever, it’s almost always done anonymously under a false name like PookieICU or TinyTom789? Are you going to let Pookie get to you because he (or she) is venting about whatever is actually bothering him (or her)? Very rarely do people own up to their meanness (unless they’re the afore mentioned Simon Cowell or the Real Housewives). What does their negativity have to do with you or your book? Really? Haters gonna hate. Why let them pull you down?

And if someone is writing an honest review and they didn’t like your book, it’s okay. I promise—both you and your book will be fine. It just means that person isn’t meant to be your reader. Focus on the readers who like what you do. They’re the ones who are going to buy your future books. Why make yourself crazy over someone else’s opinion? That is, unless you have a mother like mine. When Her Dear & Loving Husband was first released and the reviews were popping up on Amazon, I was so happy because the majority of reviews were five stars. At the time there was something like 20 five-star reviews and one one-star review. My mother said, the way only a Jewish mother can, “Did you read that one star review?”

Despite my mother, I had grown in fortitude in the 11 years between My Brother’s Battle and Her Dear & Loving Husband. I had such faith in Her Dear & Loving Husband, and I felt in my gut there was an audience for it. As a result, the negative reviews didn’t sting because I had a sense that if that person didn’t like the book, there would be others who did. After reading reviews, both good and bad, I realized I believed in what I was doing, and that was enough. That’s when I stopped reading reviews. It’s not that I don’t care if people like my work, and I don’t completely ignore reviews. When I do check my books on Amazon or iTunes, I don’t look at individual reviews, though I do look to see the average star count. I look at it this way—as long as I have more good reviews than bad, it’s all good.

Am I missing out on some feedback? Perhaps. But I have beta readers who help me through the review process, and I have editors, so I feel I’m getting the necessary outside point of view (as in outside my own head). The fact is there’s no one tougher on my own work than I am. That’s why I only publish one book a year. If there’s a book out there with my name on it, then it has passed the test of the toughest reader of all—me. And even though I’m proud of my books, I know not everyone will like them. That’s okay. Like I said, different people have different tastes. I keep writing and publishing books. I keep finding ways to grow my audience. And I keep trusting the readers. That’s what this all boils down to—trust. Trusting yourself, your talent, and your vision, and trusting the readers who want to find good books to read.

Filed under: Publishing, Writing Tagged: how to handle negative book reviews, negative book reviews, publishing, writing

Baking Time: Giving Your Story Time to Breathe

When the indie author revolution started several years ago, there was a lot of advice about how authors must do things in order to be successful. One piece of sage advice still making the rounds is how authors must write and publish books as fast as they can—story-time assembly line writing, if you will. The rationale behind this is simple: the more books you have to sell, the more money you’ll make. Makes sense, right? As a result, I felt bad about myself for not writing faster. I kept hearing about these authors who write, edit, and publish a book every few months, sometimes every few weeks, and I thought I should do that too. I felt like I worked at a snail’s pace compared to others. Then, just as I had to do with social media and marketing, I had to find what works for me, not what works for others.

I write and publish exactly one book a year. I’m not writing the entire year, mind you. I find that my stories need time to bake. I need time to roll them, knead them, push them this way and make them round, press them there while they roll. I always start out with a general idea of what the story is about, who the characters are, what happens to them, that sort of thing. First, I write a general outline of what I think will happen in the story. Then I write my first draft, which is always a painful experience for me (you can see my thoughts on writing a first draft here). As I’ve said before, I love Anne Lamott for many reasons, but mainly I love her for introducing me to the phrase “shitty first drafts” since mine are the shittiest shitty first drafts anywhere. I know that most of what I write in the first draft will either be changed, rearranged, or deleted. When I’m writing a first draft I write the story in its most basic form with hardly any description, not much dialogue, and no thought to theme or foreshadowing. I’ve been writing long enough to understand my writing process, and for whatever reason the shitty first draft is my brain’s way of working through the first layer of the story so that when I’m done I can dig a little deeper to see what’s really tasty there. When I can write “The End” on my first draft I sigh with relief because I know the hardest part is over.

After I finish my first draft, I put it aside, usually for 2-3 months—sometimes more, sometimes less. That might seem like a long time to some people, especially those of the “write as many books as you can, as fast as you can” variety, but I find that time between drafts, what I call the baking time, is important for me. Even though I’m not working on the manuscript during this time, this is when I let my mind wander through different scenes, putting the characters in different situations, playing the “What will happen if…” game that fiction writers are so fond of.

I’m not only imagining my way through the story during this time. I read, a lot, particularly books written during or about the time my story takes place. My latest project is set in Victorian England, so you’ve already guessed that I’ve reread a number of Dickens’ novels—most recently Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend, both of which touch on the same themes I want to address. I’ve also read Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, which is set in New York, but since one of my main characters is a young American woman from New York, the novel has been a great read, giving me insight into New York society. If I’ve got you thinking of Wharton’s The Buccaneers or Lady Grantham from Downton Abbey, no, my book isn’t about American heiresses in London—not quite, anyway. In addition to my reading, I’ve been watching a lot of television about the Victorian period. The BBC is a master at recreating classic works of literature, many of which are set in the Victorian era. I’ve also been watching a number of documentaries about the period. The journey back to the Victorian era is mainly review for me since I studied that period for my Master’s degree (my thesis was on Dickens, the Big D himself). One thing I’m doing this time that I haven’t done before is I created a board on Pinterest where I’m pinning clothing from the Victorian era, as well as furniture, houses, art, gardens, books—anything I can find to give me a feel for the period. Right now the board is private because I don’t want to bombard people with the 40 pins a day I put on my research board, but soon I’ll make a public version so others can see what I’ve found.

This is where the fun of writing fiction begins for me—immersing myself in the time period. Reading other authors, learning new information, seeing the clothing and the furniture, listening to the music, watching the movies and documentaries, it all gives me an abundance of ideas to use in my own story. Of course, not everything I read or see will end up in the novel, but it doesn’t matter. It gives me a framework from which to build the world in which my characters inhabit. If it takes time for the ideas to meld together to form a cohesive story, that’s fine. I’ve learned to be content with my writing process.

How do I know it’s time to start writing again? It hits me out of the blue, like an oven timer letting me know the baking is done and my story is ready. This happened to me just last week. Suddenly, I saw a new opening scene for my novel playing before me as though it were on a movie reel behind my eyes. As an opening chapter it works better than the one I had before because it introduces us to the main characters, to the main setting of the story, and yet there’s enough action in it so it isn’t all exposition. So far so good. As I continued thinking about it, I realized that I could see the story through to its new conclusion, along with a few twists and turns I hadn’t thought of when I was writing the first draft. I wrote a new outline, and now I can begin writing the second draft, which is where all the pieces of the puzzle start to fit together. Really, I know it’s time to start writing again when the pain from not getting back to the story is stronger than the pain of writing—though, to be fair, this second draft isn’t painful the way the first draft is. In fact, the second draft isn’t painful at all. This break between first and second draft costs me a few months, but I find it’s a fun time for me and it’s time well spent.

It took some time, but I did finally realize that I’m not on anyone’s time frame but my own. For authors who write more quickly than I do, that’s great. My point is only to say that it’s up to authors to find out what works for them, and everyone’s process is different. Don’t fall into the trap, as I nearly did, of being dictated to about how often you should write or publish books. If you can write more quickly, go for it. If you need a year, two years, take it. Do your own thing. Write your own way. I would rather publish one book a year and put out something I was happy with, something I was proud to have my name on, than put out something I wasn’t satisfied with because I felt like I had to publish something. Over the years, I’ve come to terms with my “baking time.” Bringing stories to life is what I love most about writing, and the baking time allows me to do that in a richer, fuller way.

Filed under: Publishing, Writing Tagged: Indie Authors, indie publishing, publishing, writing

Wherever You Go, Go With All Your Heart

I’ve been following Catherine Ryan Howard’s blog Catherine, Caffeinated for a few years now, and I love her insights into indie publishing, her sarcastic sense of humor, and I freely admit that I share her love for all things caffeine. Recently, Catherine posted an article about how the hardest thing about a decision is making it. In her post, Catherine talks about her long-time desire to attend Trinity College in Dublin, and how, finally, at the last minute she applied, and how, finally, she’s attending the university she dreamed about. I nodded as I read Catherine’s post because I had the same realization—that the hardest part about a decision is making it.

Like Catherine, I had university dreams for years. I knew from the time I was working on my BA in English that I wanted to pursue my PhD so I could teach at the university level, but you know that great saying about how life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. As soon as I finished my BA, I dutifully went into an MA program, also in English, with the intention of following up with a doctoral program. I finished my Master’s degree, but I was sidetracked when I worked in “The Industry” (television and film) in Hollywood for a couple of years as a script analyst. The Hollywood work was exciting at first, though it lost its luster soon enough for me. On a whim I took a job teaching kindergarten at a small private school in Southern California, and I felt like I had come home. I loved teaching. I loved the children. I loved that the world is new for five year-olds and everything is fascinating to them. I decided to go back to school to get my teaching license, and since then I’ve spent 20 years teaching everything from Pre-K to elementary school to middle school to high school to writing workshops for adults. At the same time I was running The Copperfield Review and writing short stories, articles, and novels, and in 2011 I began Copperfield Press and joined the indie author revolution.

About two years ago I started getting antsy. I had been in education 18 years by then, I had Copperfield Press up and running, and I had found a flow for indie publishing that works for me. I realized I needed something new, some new challenge. I think that’s what happens to some people when they’ve been doing the same thing for a while. It could just be me since I know teachers who have taught at the same school for years and love it. At my first job in Las Vegas, as a learning strategist at a middle school, I met a teacher who taught the same subject in the same school in the same classroom for over 30 years. She taught there so long that she was teaching the children of her original students. She would have stayed even longer than she did but her mother’s health began to fail so she retired to stay home to take care of her mother. I’ve always envied people like that, people who know where they belong, but I have too much of a restless spirit to keep still in that way. The way I kept teaching interesting for me was to keep moving—from grade level to grade level, from school to school, sometimes even from state to state, moving first from California to Idaho and then from Idaho to Nevada. Once I started teaching high school, I realized there was nowhere else to teach except university, which is where I wanted to go in the first place.

Excuses are funny things, aren’t they? They love to multiply and make you question yourself, leaving you nervous about decisions that should be easy peasy. Over the years my desire to get my PhD would rise to the surface, but the excuses would come, like ants marching one by one: What if I don’t get accepted anywhere? What if I do get accepted somewhere? I can’t decide what to study—English or Education? What if I choose the wrong one? And whatever I choose I’ll have to go back to school for four years. I’ve been out of school too long to be able to go back for four years. I’ll have to leave my job but my job is comfortable and safe. What will I do without my salary? And what about my writing? I’m a writer. I need to write. When will I find time to write my fiction if I’m back in school? I’m too old. I’m too set in my ways. And so on. You know the drill. We all have a list of excuses that scream into our brains whenever we want to do something different.

For me, I make changes when the pain from not making them is stronger than my fear of the change. I had been feeling like I needed a career change for a while, but at first it was just a mild hum in the background that I could ignore or explain away.Then the mild hum became a pointed stick that wouldn’t stop poking me. I understood on a visceral level that I needed to move on since being comfortable wasn’t enough anymore. I finally made the decision to apply to PhD programs. I took the GRE (Graduate Record Exam) because that’s a requirement for graduate school here in the U.S. and I hadn’t taken it since I applied for my Master’s program 24 years ago. I researched different programs at universities in Nevada, California, Oregon, and Washington State. After some soul searching and several discussions with a friend and co-worker who has been my cheerleader (thanks Judy!) I realized that I had something to offer when it comes to the teaching of writing so I decided to pursue a PhD in Education. It was a happy accident when I discovered that one of the best programs in the U.S. for teacher education is right in my own backyard at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. I applied to one school—UNLV—and the rest, as they say, is history.

It’s funny how things happen sometimes. I remember when I had taken a class at UNLV when I first moved to Vegas 10 or 11 years ago, and I remember standing on the grassy lawn near the Carlson Education Building, and I remember feeling like I belonged on that campus. Well, it only took me a decade, but now I do belong there. The funny thing is that now, taking my classes and planning out my program for the long haul, I don’t know what took me so long. Yes, the classes are challenging, but it’s a PhD and you have to work for it. The truth is, I love it. Even when it’s hard and I’m exhausted and I’m ready to pull my hair out I love it. That’s what happens when you end up where you’re supposed to be—something clicks and it just feels right. In Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, there’s this great saying about how when you follow your dreams the universe conspires to help you. That’s how I feel now. Once I made the decision that this is what I wanted to do, everything else was easy. And you know what? The other stuff gets done. My own writing, as in for my new novel, is getting done, maybe not as quickly as before, but I can see I’m making progress and that’s enough right now.

Once, when Oprah Winfrey still had her talk show, she had a guest who talked about how it’s not the things people do that cause them pain but the things they don’t do. I’ve always held that idea close. Whenever I have a decision to make—yes or no?—I always ask myself if I would regret it if I didn’t try. I hope that whatever decisions you have to make—yes or no?—you’re able to follow your dreams, and, as Confucius said, wherever you go, go with all your heart.

Filed under: Publishing, Spirituality, Writing Tagged: Oprah Winfrey, pursuing your dreams, spirituality, The Alchemist

God Bless Us, Every One

The Christmas display at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.

Just a quick note to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and a very, very happy 2015. I’ve noticed a lot of new followers to this blog recently, and for some reason the Loving Husband Trilogy has been selling well even though I am currently doing exactly zero things to promote it. Thank you to the Loving Husband Trilogy fans who make my day every day with your e-mails, messages, tweets, and comments on this site. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to check out this blog, comment, and even follow along on this crazy ride. You’re all much appreciated.

If you’ve been hanging around this blog for any amount of time you know that Dickens is my favorite author, and Christmas is always a good time to share some of his work. Below, for your reading pleasure, is my favorite part of A Christmas Carol, Stave 5, The End of It. I love it when someone, even someone like crotchedy old Scrooge, learns the lessons they need to learn in order to live their best lives. That’s what we’re here for, after all. Enjoy.

Happy holidays!

Stave 5 – The End of it

Snow Globe at the Bellagio

Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to make amends in!

“I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!” Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!”

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.

“They are not torn down,” cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, “they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here: I am here: the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will!”

His hands were busy with his garments all this time: turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.

“I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”

He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing there: perfectly winded.

“There’s the saucepan that the gruel was in!” cried Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fire-place. “There’s the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There’s the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present, sat! There’s the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It’s all right, it’s all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!”

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of briliant laughs!

“I don’t know what day of the month it is!” said Scrooge. “I don’t know how long I’ve been among the Spirits. I don’t know anything. I’m quite a baby. Never mind. I don’t care. I’d rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!”

He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer, ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding, hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his stirring, cold cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious. Glorious!

“What’s to-day?” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

“Eh? ” returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

“What’s to-day, my fine fellow?” said Scrooge.

“To-day?” replied the boy. “Why, Christmas Day.”

“It’s Christmas Day!” said Scrooge to himself. “I haven ‘t missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!”

“Hallo!” returned the boy

“Do you know the Poulterer’s, in the next street but one, at the corner?” Scrooge inquired.

“I should hope I did,” replied the lad.

“An intelligent boy!” said Scrooge. “A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there? Not the little prize Turkey; the big one?”

“What, the one as big as me?” returned the boy.

“What a delightful boy!” said Scrooge. “It’s a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!”

“It’s hanging there now,” replied the boy.

“Is it?” said Scrooge. “Go and buy it.”

“Walk-er!” exclaimed the boy.

“No, no,” said Scrooge, “I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell ‘em to bring it here, that I may give them the irection where to take it. Come back with the man, and I’ll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes, and I’ll give you half-a-crown!”

“I’ll send it to Bob Cratchit’s!” whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. “He sha’n’t know who sends it. It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob’s will be!”

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down stairs to open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer’s man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye.

“I shall love it, as long as I live!” cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand. “I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has in its face! It’s a wonderful knocker! — Here’s the Turkey. Hallo! Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!”

It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped ‘em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

“Why, it’s impossible to carry that to Camden Town,” said Scrooge. “You must have a cab.”

The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried.

Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when you don’t dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-plaister over it, and been quite satisfied.

He dressed himself all in his best, and at last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, “Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!” And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.

He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his counting-house the day before, and said, “Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe?” It sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it.

“My dear sir,” said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and taking the old gentleman by both his hands. “How do you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!”

“Mr Scrooge?”

“Yes,” said Scrooge. “That is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. And will you have the goodness –” here Scrooge whispered in his ear.

“Lord bless me!” cried the gentleman, as if his breath were gone. “My dear Mr Scrooge, are you serious?”

“If you please,” said Scrooge. “Not a farthing less. A great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that favour?”

“My dear sir,” said the other, shaking hands with him. “I don’t know what to say to such munifi‐”

“don’t say anything, please,” retorted Scrooge. “Come and see me. Will you come and see me?”

“I will!” cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he meant to do it.

“Thank ‘ee,” said Scrooge. “I am much obliged to you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you!”

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows: and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk — that anything — could give him so much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew’s house.

He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did it:

“Is your master at home, my dear?” said Scrooge to the girl. Nice girl! Very.

“Yes, sir.”

“Where is he, my love?” said Scrooge.

“He’s in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I’ll show you up-stairs, if you please.”

“Thank ‘ee. He knows me,” said Scrooge, with his hand already on the dining-room lock. “I’ll go in here, my dear.”

He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door. They were looking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see that everything is right.

“Fred!” said Scrooge.

Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn’t have done it, on any account.

“Why bless my soul!” cried Fred, “who’s that?”

“It’s I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?”

Let him in! It is a mercy he didn’t shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when hecame. So did the plump sister when she came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!

But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his heart upon.

And he did it; yes he did! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half, behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.

His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o’clock.

“Hallo!” growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. “What do you mean by coming here at this time of day.”

“I am very sorry, sir,” said Bob. “I am behind my time.”

“You are?” repeated Scrooge. “Yes. I think you are. Step this way, if you please.”

“It’s only once a year, sir,” pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank. “It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.”

“Now, I’ll tell you what, my friend,” said Scrooge, “I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,” he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again: “and therefore I am about to raise your salary!”

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it; holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat.

“A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit.”

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

Filed under: Charles Dickens, Fiction, Tidbits Tagged: A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Christmas, merry Christmas

Do You Have Any Tips for Writing the Second Novel in a Series?

As of yesterday, I officially survived my first term as a doctoral student. One term down, only seven to go! I have a few weeks to replenish my brain cells with some much needed rest, and then in the middle of January it’s back to it. For now, here are some thoughts I had while writing the second book in the Loving Husband Trilogy, Her Loving Husband’s Curse.

* * * * *

Whenever I have a new writing task ahead of me, something I haven’t done before, the first thing I do is seek information from writers who have traveled that road before. There’s a benefit to searching out tips and hints since others have already been there, done that, whatever that is you’re doing at the moment. It’s important to learn from others, sit at their feet and listen to what they have to say about their experiences, their mistakes, and their successes, like Luke Skywalker learning from the wisdom of  Yoda (I’m not implying that writers are small, green, and heavily wrinkled—though I can think of a few that fit that description). I learned how to open myself up and not become stifled when writing a first draft by reading Natalie Goldberg and Anne Lamott. There is a ton of information—countless articles and books—about how to write a novel. But what do these experts have to say about writing the second novel in a series?

There’s a fair amount of information about how to write a second novel that is just a second novel—in other words, unrelated in any way to the first novel. An unrelated second novel can and should be written in a different style, with different characters, different situations. For myself, I found an unrelated next novel easier to write than the second novel in a series. Her Dear & Loving Husband wasn’t my first novel, you see. Victory Garden, Woman of Stones, and My Brother’s Battle were all written before Her Dear & Loving Husband was published. Since each novel was completely different (different historical periods, different situations, different voices), I could approach it in a fresh way and not feel tied down by expectations created by the previous story.

A second novel in a series, on the other hand, is a completely different animal. It should have the same style, the same theme, and a related plot. Often, though not always, it has the same characters. How do you give readers what they loved about the first book while keeping them guessing so they’re surprised by characters they’ve already come to know and hopefully love? That’s the million dollar question when it comes to writing the second book in a series.

Part of the reason I struggled when I began writing Her Loving Husband’s Curse was because I couldn’t find much information about the problems specific to writing a second novel in a series. With a lack of any hard evidence about what works and what doesn’t, I felt like I was largely on my own. Still, I pressed on and struggled through, missing the sage advice I’ve relied on whenever I encountered a new writing challenge. From the few sources I found, one common theme that echoed throughout was how the second novel needs to be “the same but different.” I agree. But how do I accomplish that?

A while back Joanna Penn’s excellent website The Creative Penn featured an interview with Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris, authors of the London steampunk novel Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences. I’m paraphrasing here, but one of the aspects of writing a series they talked about was that each book should have its own story yet there should be an over-arching theme that ties the pieces together. They also mention having a dangling plot thread which shows readers that there’s a larger plot throughout the books. As I wrote Her Loving Husband’s Curse, I found this to be true. It helped me to think of the books in my trilogy as being part of one larger story. This way the theme is evident throughout, and the plot feels connected because it follows through each subsequent book. If you’d like to read or listen to the interview, click here.

I also looked to see what other writers have done with their second books. This tip is obvious, though it didn’t occur to me right away. I’m a little slow sometimes. Try reading the second book in several series from different authors to see how the authors handled the transition from book to book. I chose to read the first and second books if I hadn’t read the series before since I wanted to see how the author moved from book one to book two. How much information from the first book does the author use? How does the plot flow from book one to book two, or were they seemingly unrelated or only loosely related? How do the characters change and grow? What is the common thread that binds the stories together? For myself, I only looked at novels that featured the same characters in each book since in my series you’ll see the same cast throughout the trilogy. If the plot in book two seemed unrelated to the plot in book one, I tended not to like book two as much, but that’s simply my personal taste.

Okay, so in this case—writing the second novel in a series—there might not be a ton of information, but we can always look to see how other authors have handled the problem with their own series. If you find a great resource on writing the second novel in a series, or if you have some tips for other writers because you’ve written a series yourself, then share by all means. One of the things I love about being a writer is how we all learn from each other.

Filed under: Her Dear & Loving Husband, Her Loving Husband's Curse, Writing Tagged: Her Dear & Loving Husband, Her Loving Husband's Curse, writing a series, writing the second book in a series, writing tips

A Trail of Breadcrumbs…Otherwise Known as Foreshadowing

I managed to take some time to see Gilcrease Orchard, a real-live farm right here in the desert in Las Vegas.

I’m very nearly finished with my first semester as a doc student. While I seem to have survived relatively unscathed, I wonder if I’ll have as much luck next term when I’ll be taking a research statistics class. Let me put this in proper perspective–I haven’t taken a math class (that’s maths for my British friends) in 25 years. That’s not an exaggeration. I counted. You Doctor Who fans out there will know what I mean when I refer to the Ood–some space alien thingamajigs that carry their (what is it they carry? I can’t remember…was it their hearts? Their voices?) around in their hands. Well, I’ll be carrying my brain around in my hands next term while I look around, perplexed, saying, “I don’t know what happened. It just fell out…”

On a lighter note, I’ve come across some interesting studies about how our identities as writers are formed and how teachers play a big role in shaping those identities. For those of you out there who are writers (and you know who you are), how much of your self-identity as a writer was shaped by your teachers? Have an answer? Good. Remember it because I may need you for research purposes.

For now, here’s an oldie but goodie with some thoughts about one of my favorite aspects of writing fiction–the breadcrumbs, also known as foreshadowing. I wrote this while I was writing Her Loving Husband’s Curse, Book Two of the Loving Husband Trilogy.

Foreshadowing

What is foreshadowing? Foreshadowing plants clues for the reader. It drops hints about events to come. It creates suspense. It tells the reader to stay tuned. I like to describe foreshadowing as the writer leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for the reader to follow. Readers aren’t sure where the trail leads, but the crumbs sure are tasty so they’re willing to follow along. Then, when they get to their final destination, there’s an “Aha!” moment where they realize that the journey, every step of it, makes sense. They can see how the turns and detours were connected all along.

Foreshadowing shouldn’t be obvious. Sometimes the detail the author is pointing out may seem unimportant in the moment and it’s not until later that we realize that that empty bottle of whiskey on the kitchen floor or those keys left in the ignition in a car in a garage were clues. Sometimes authors like to drop false hints, known as as red herrings, to deliberately mislead readers. This is especially true in mystery and suspense novels.

They way I incorporate foreshadowing into my fiction is fairly simple. Whenever I begin a novel I create a blueprint, a rough outline of what I think will happen in the story. And, as I said before, I must know the ending so I know where I’m heading. Once I begin the first draft I try to work in a few scenes that I know will act as hints about what’s to come. But I don’t worry too much about foreshadowing in the first draft since I’m still feeling out the story and a lot of what I write will change as I understand more about the characters and the plot.

The revising stage is where I go heavy on the foreshadowing. Now I understand the story, the plot is set, so I go back into earlier chapters and find places where I can drop those tasty breadcrumbs I want readers to follow. For example, in Her Dear & Loving Husband there’s the opening scene with Sarah and her landlady where the landlady warns Sarah about the ghosts from the Salem Witch Trials that still haunt Salem. Ghosts in Salem? Sarah dismisses the irrational concern, saying she doesn’t believe in ghosts. What at first seems like an odd conversation between Sarah and her elderly landlady becomes important because this is Sarah’s first hint of the supernatural world she has unknowingly entered in Salem. Sarah has more to do with ghosts than she knows.

And there’s the scene in The Witches Lair where Sarah receives the psychic reading from Olivia, the motherly Wiccan who is also a powerful seer. I wanted the reader to sense that something big is coming for Sarah, and since Salem, Massachusetts really is a center for Wiccans and psychics, I thought Olivia’s prophecy was the way to do it.

In this scene I used dialogue to create the foreshadowing. Here are Olivia’s cryptic words to Sarah: “I can see that he will find you. He is here and he will find you.” When Sarah asks who, Olivia responds, “He will. The one who has been waiting for you. He has been waiting for you for oh so very long.” The phrase “oh so very long” isn’t remarkable in itself until another character says something similar later on. Is there a connection between Olivia’s “oh so very long” and this other character? You’ll need to keep reading to find out.

Keep in mind that if you promise something through foreshadowing, deliver it. If you hint at a connection between characters, then develop that connection. If you bring that empty bottle of whiskey to the reader’s attention, then show why that bottle was important—someone is hiding alcoholism, for example. Otherwise the breadcrumbs become a wasted opportunity on a dead end trail. It’s true that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but if you’re going to make a point of showing that cigar to your readers it should have some purpose. Some writers refer to this plot device as “Chekhov’s Gun.” The playwright Chekhov said that if you put a gun on stage in the first act, then it should be fired in the second act. If you’re not going to fire the gun, then don’t bother with it. Leave it for your next story where one of your characters will have a reason to shoot someone. If you show the gun, the cigar, the bottle of whiskey, whatever it is, and you don’t do anything with it then you’re setting your readers up to be disappointed.

If you’re writing a series then you can carry your foreshadowing through your next books. Does the fact that Olivia is a powerful seer play an important role in books two and three of the Loving Husband Trilogy? You betcha. Will Sarah continue learning about the supernatural world? You know it. Then there’s that nosy reporter determined to reveal James’s secret. Will he cause more problems for our favorite preternatural professor? That’s the beginning of a new trail of breadcrumbs I hope readers will follow through the journey of Her Loving Husband’s Curse and Her Loving Husband’s Return.

I love foreshadowing. I love the connectedness it brings to a story. It’s an important part of fiction writing, and it’s a great tool to bind a stand-alone story or the books in a series together.

Filed under: Her Dear & Loving Husband, Her Loving Husband's Curse, Writing Tagged: creative writing, foreshadowing, Her Dear and Loving Husband, Her Loving Husband's Curse, The Loving Husband Trilogy, writing, writing tips