Judith Post's Blog, page 126

Writing: Am I good enough?

I’m writing this blog early because I’ve lost the notes I scribbled for myself AGAIN, and I’m afraid I’d better write it before I lose the idea entirely.  It’s been one of those months.  I get organized one day, disorganized the next.  I keep getting knocked off balance.  Not a bad thing.  Life happens, and most of it’s good, but it can settle down any time soon.

On top of that, I keep bouncing from optimism–”This is a great book”–to doubt–”Can I pull this book off?”  I’m in the “slog” part of my new novel.  I know where the plot has to go, what the characters have to struggle with, but this is the part of the book where subplots are coming together to weigh heavily on the story and pacing, where the big, black moment is breathing down my protaganists’ (and my) neck, and everything has to feel impossible for my protagonists to achieve.  Problem is, when they reach that stage, so do I.  We’ll survive, I know, but at the moment, things look bleak.

It’s nice, then, when new members join our writers’ group and I can share things I’ve learned with them.  It reminds me and my longtime writer friends that we’ve come farther than we realize.  We forget that sometimes.  I remember when I was invited to be on my first writers’ panel at a mystery conference.  I sat there, rubbing elbows with authors I’d admired for years, wondering why in the world I was supposed to be a part of the group.  I felt like the lowly newbie, but no one treated me that way.  As a matter of fact, many of them came up to compliment me on a new short story of mine that had come out in a Women’s Sleuth anthology.  Writers are generous that way.  They made me feel accomplished.

That memory triggered another one.  I went to a writers’ conference at Ball State in Muncie, Indiana.  Lawrence Block offered a weeklong workshop on writing, and I was shocked when at least fifty percent of what he taught emphasized finding the personal fear that held writers back from pursuing their dreams.  I thought I’d already faced mine–years of poverty being near the top of my list.  But I was wrong.  After filling out questionnaires and personality quizzes, my biggest fear was “Am I good enough?”  I have to admit, he nailed my biggest hangup.  Not just for writing.  But for life.  When I was a student , I always knew I could have scored higher on a test if I’d just studied a little bit longer, even when I got an A.  When I sold a short story to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, I knew I should really be working on novels.  I’ve always been able to see what I could have done better.  And I’ve always admired people who were born with the ease of self-confidence.

But we are who we are.  And now that I’m older, I’m more accepting of my flaws.  And it helps that I can look back and see that I have come a long way.  I’m making progress.  And I’ve finished lots of books.  I’ll finish this one, too.  And once I pound it with rewrites, something I’m proud of will take shape.  I know it will.  Because I’ve learned the process.  And I know that I’ve doubted every book I’ve ever written at this stage of the plotline.  It’s a good thing.  Panic keeps me sharper, trying harder.  Writing isn’t meant to be all fun and games:)

 

And–here’s the source of Neil Gaiman’s quote, “You have to write when you’re not inspired.”  This is a really interesting link.  I hope you enjoy it.  http://winningedits.com/neil-gaiman-on-writing

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5023544.Judith_Post

 

Writing–Experimentation

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know that I’ve been experimenting with different types of novels and novellas in the last two years.  With Fallen Angels and Blood Battles, I’ve tried using multiple points of view for storytelling.  The advantage of multiple POV is that you can choose which character will add the most emotional impact for each chapter of your novel.  You can juxtapose points of view to build tension and add layers and depth to your story.  Romantic suspense authors use it often to show a nice, sympathetic woman’s POV before they flip to a villain’s POV.  Then they let the reader know these two characters are going to collide, and the rest of the book will be a struggle for the woman to survive that encounter.  Multiple POV is a wonderful tool that lets an author come at a story from several different angles.

For everything else I write, I’ve used third person, limited POV.  The advantage to third, limited is that you live in one character’s mind and can only know or experience what that person experiences.  Therefore, the reader only knows what your character knows and, just as importantly, thinks and feels, which in theory results in the reader identifying more with your main character.  In Wolf’s Bane and Shadow Demon, I tried for a kickass heroine in a traditional type, urban fantasy novel.  In Empty Altars and the novel I’m working on now, I did the kickass heroine with layers of Greek and Norse myths.  In my novellas, I experimented with different settings and time periods, some more like romance plots, some more like mysteries or quests.  Whatever struck my fancy.

I haven’t just been experimenting with my writing, though.  I’ve been playing around with marketing too.  I started this blog and a facebook author page, joined Goodreads and twitter to have an “author platform,”  to learn a little about “social media.”  I can’t honestly say that I have an opinion on how effectively any of these have worked.  Sometimes I tweet about a novel or novella and my numbers go up.  Sometimes, they don’t.  When I first started Goodreads, it was a lot easier to list a book for read-to-review and get some reviews.  Now, Goodreads is deluged with authors, and finding reviews isn’t so easy.  Bloggers have reviewed or interviewed me, and they’ve all been wonderful to work with.  Have I gotten sales from them?  I don’t know.  But my theory is, a little of this and a little of that might add up to something eventually.  I don’t expect overnight success.  I plan to just keep doing what I’m doing and give it time to grow.

I can say that Book Bub was worth every penny of the $90 I paid to advertise Fallen Angels when it was free for four days.  Book Bub was full when I wanted to promote Shadow Demon, so I paid $40 to try eBookBooster.  For $40, eBookBooster sent my free days for Wolf’s Bane to 50 sites.  Do I know if those sites actually listed my free days?  No, but I know that my ranking for Wolf’s Bane shot to #120–all free, of course, but I’ve had 3 more good reviews on amazon as a result and hopefully more to come.  Enough to make me happy.  Right now, I’m just trying to get readers to find my books.

The thing I just started to experiment with is Wattpad.  I just downloaded the first two chapters of Fabric of Life there and joined that community.  I plan on downloading a new chapter every Tuesday and Friday.  My first impression is that Wattpad is going to be a fun place to be.  I’ve started following some really good writers on it.  Eventually, I hope some readers start to follow me.  Would I put my chapters on Wattpad if I only had one book?  I don’t know.  But I don’t plan to write any more novels for that series.  I’m only using the setting–Emerald Hills–for a series of novellas, a tourist town filled with different shops that not only sell painted gourds, bonbons, or imported shoes, but each of their sells items comes with a touch of magic.  And if Fabric of Life bombs on Wattpad?  I’ve learned something.  Wattpad isn’t for me.

I’m still trying out new things.  I’m getting an idea of what I’ll keep writing and what I’ll close up.  In marketing?  I’m still learning.  The journey might be bumpy, but so far, it’s been fun.

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

http://www.wattpad.com/23706023-fabric-of-life

 

 

Writing: can you do everything right, and it doesn’t work?

I just finished two books that I’ve been wanting to read for a long time.  The first was, in my opinion, flawed…but I can’t wait to go out and buy the next book.  The second book had great writing, a great voice, characters that I liked, depth, surprises, tension…and I probably won’t buy the next book.  And that stopped me short.  The author had done all of the things that I list as essentials for a good book, but I felt as though I’d run a marathon before I finished the last page…and I’d barely survived.

I bugged my poor husband about it.  (He loves it when I get technical about writing–NOT.  But he loves me and tolerates my tirades pretty well).  When I finished all of my theories and questions, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “You either liked it or you didn’t.”  But that’s what I couldn’t understand.  I did like the second book.  It just made me tired.  And being the “read for fun” person that I am, maybe it demanded too much from me.

I have a wonderful writer friend at Scribes (our writers’ group) who constantly reminds the rest of us that we didn’t give her any place to “rest.”  We get so serious about plotting, pacing, and keeping the tension tight that we cram one cataclysm (emotional, physical, or action packed) after another into our stories to keep conflict on each and every page.  Her advice?  The reader needs a place to catch his breath, think things through, and gird his loins for the next drama.  And I think she’s right.

Fluff scenes don’t work.  They don’t move the plot in any way at all.  They feel like filler.  But my favorite writing advice book of all time is Jack Bickham’s Scene and Sequel.  His advice is: action/reaction.  There’s a time for the protagonist’s emotional response to what’s happening, his reaction to what’s worked or failed, and his plan for the next step to accomplish his goals.  Of course, that plan never fully realizes his goal until the end of the book, but it gives the reader a chance to follow his thoughts and feelings.  But…the second book had that, briefly, and I was still exhausted at the end of the book.  Why?

I finally decided that some authors take the advice, “Start with a problem that screws up your protagonist’s life to the point that he has to fix it to be happy.  Give him a plan to make things right, and then don’t let it work and keep making things worse for him until he hits the big, black moment,” a little too seriously.  At least, for me.  The second book got LOTS of great reviews.  TONS of readers loved it.  I’m maybe the only one who read it and raised my hands in victory that I’d made it to the end.  Because I felt too beat up.

I don’t need my protagonist to barely survive before the end of a book.  I don’t need him/her to be beat up, zapped, near death before the last page.  I’m going against conventional advice, but those scenarios feel contrived to me, most of the time, to give the reader a BIG ending.  And I’m not a fan.

I’m still not sure–and believe me, I’ll be churning it around in my little brain for a while–why a nearly perfectly written book, that’s in a genre that I enjoy, didn’t work for me.  I mean, it did.  I’m glad I read it.  But will I buy the next book?  No.  But I think part of it is that I need some light moments in a book.  A place to rest and feel good, to catch my breath, before I get hit by the next big conflict.  Or else, by the time I finish the last page, even if it’s a happy ending, it’s cost me too much psychic energy to want to put myself through that again.

(P.S.  I won’t be posting a blog next week.  Helping my grandson move into his apartment for college.  Oh, the joy:)  Sweat equity for teenagers.  But I’ll get to see him a little longer…and he’s pretty much fun to be with.)

 

Writing: something old, something new

The second book in the Wolf’s Bane series should be up soon, hopefully late this week or early next week.  I’m pretty excited about it.  When I started writing urban fantasy, I did the scatter gun approach.  (The same brilliant idea I used for my novellas.  Learn from my mistakes).  The first book my agent accepted was Fabric of Life.  She sent it to lots of big publishers.  All of them declined it.  But I learned a lot from the feedback.  Fabric of Life, even though it has magic in it and a ghost or two, wasn’t urban fantasy.  Most urban fantasy doesn’t have a real mortal in its plots.  It’s usually a kick-ass heroine who has to team with some other supernatural (often a romantic interest) to defeat some horrible, powerful, supernatural  villain.   So, I sat down and wrote Fallen Angels.

She sent out Fallen Angels, too.  With the same results.  It wasn’t quite what publishers were looking for.  Of course, I didn’t quite follow the rules this time either, because it seemed odd to me that fallen angels and vampires would dip in and out of Three Rivers and no mortal would ever know they were there or get caught in their crossfire.  So, of course, I added that.  And…my novel was turned down.

The third time I gave urban fantasy a stab, I decided to try to play by the rules.  I have a few mortals bopping around in the plot, but mostly I focused on Reece, who owns a martial arts studio, who’s attacked by a werewolf, and wouldn’t survive except that a gargoyle rescues her.  I’ve always wanted to do something with a gargoyle, and this seemed like as good a novel as any to introduce one.  Of course, the werewolf scratches her, and a bloodred tattoo inks itself into her flesh, and her magic powers are awakened.  She discovers that she comes from a long line of witches.  I was pretty proud of myself when I finished this book.  I had gargoyles, werewolves, and witches battling greedy rogues.  I’d come as close to a true urban fantasy book as I can manage.  And what did the publishers say?  The urban fantasy market was now glutted, and this was too similar to things that were already out there.  Arrrgh!

By the time I got all of the “thanks, but no thanks” replies for Wolf’s Bane, I’d already written a fourth urban fantasy–this one with Greek and Norse gods and goddesses.  How’s that for unique?  But it didn’t matter.  The publishers weren’t jumping up and down to see a new take on urban fantasy.  That’s when I decided to give online publishing a try, and that’s been a learning experience, too.

The thing to learn or take away from this is that publishers want novels that are similar to what’s already out there, but not too similar.  They want it to fit the market, but be fresh and unique.  And trends that are “hot” turn lukewarm or cold really fast.  So you might as well write what you really want to and make it the best you can.  But know your markets.  Trying to swim upstream in publishing can make you just plain tired.

I finished the second book for Fallen Angels early this year and put it online in May.  While I waited for that book to go up, I did rewrites on the second Wolf’s Bane book, and it should be available soon.  My agent suggested I make it shorter and faster, so that I’d have a series with a lot more action.  I tried, and I added touches that would keep me entertained–an evil, Egyptian pharoah who twisted his mother’s magic into something dark and dangerous and a demon who wants to go home, but the pharoah won’t let him.  It was pretty fun to write.  And the truth is, that’s all a writer can really do.  Write the best book she can, give it a fighting chance with some marketing and promotion, and hope for the best.

By the way, a good cover makes a BIG difference, and I love the cover for Shadow Demon.  It fits the story.

Whatever you’re working on, I hope you’re passionate about it.  Timing is everything in writing, so good luck!

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

 

 

Writing: Sprinters and marathons

It’s been a long time since I sat down to write original pages for a book.  I was so far ahead for a while, my agent couldn’t keep up.  So I started writing novellas so that I’d have new things to post online.  Now, things have changed.  I have 5 books online, I’m getting feedback on them, and people are asking, “When will the second or third book be available?”

When I wrote the books, they were sort of an experiment to see which things readers liked most.  I wrote the novellas for short, quick fun.  Maybe not the best idea.  It suddenly occurred to me, I can’t possibly keep all of the series afloat.  It’s time to narrow my ambitions.  With that in mind, I created four gargoyles (one for each corner of a cathedral) in my Ally/Dante series, and when I found the right supernatural creature for the last gargoyle, I considered that series finished.  Next, I wrapped up the Death & Loralei series and thought long and hard about a novella to bring it to a happy, upbeat conclusion.  Two series down, three more to go.

Sigh.  Three more novella series is no easy feat.  And I enjoy writing all of them.  But I know I’m not being realistic.  I currently have three novel series to work on, too.  I’m not a fast writer.  True, I can build up word count faster when I work on novellas.  Not because the words flow more quickly, but because I can see a goal in sight, and I race toward it.  Often, I write more hours a day, push myself harder.  It’s a sprint to the finish, and then I can relax.  Working on a novel is more like a marathon.  I pace myself, think of scenes instead of the whole story, and inch toward the final battle one step at a time.  I don’t write as many hours a day so that my brain actually works when I sit in front of my computer the next morning, and the one after that, and the one…..  You get the idea.

It sort of surprises me that I didn’t think of how I meant to balance everything when I started so many books and novellas.  But I was experimenting.  Did readers like medieval stories with witches and Harpies?  It doesn’t seem like it.  They’re my worst selling stories, but they’re also one of my favorite to write.  Who knew I’d get hooked on Christian and Brina?  And then there’s Emerald Hills, where I finally learned how to write a little bit of romance.  If I pat myself too much on the back about that, one of my romance writer friends will put me in my place:)    It’s easy for me to stay humble.  That’s what my friends and family are for.  And then there’s Babet and Prosper.  My absolute favorites.  I can’t stop writing them.  I like them too much.  And that’s just the novellas.

Aargh.  There are only so many hours a day that my brain will work.  I can only write so much.  So heed my advice.  Think before you write.  How many stories do you have time to make into a series?  People get impatient.  If they like book one, they might buy book two, and if they like that, when will book three come out?

I like balance in my life.  I’m not so fond of juggling.  So think before you write.  Hit your computer keys responsibly.  For your sake and others’.

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

P.S.  If anyone has any questions or topics they’re interested in, I’d be happy to give them a go.  Just let me know.

Writers, readers, & reviews

It’s taken me a long time, but I finally got up to 44 reviews on one of my  novels.  When I offered Fallen Angels for free for 4 days on amazon, I got over 18,000 downloads (big for me, not so impressive for best selling authors).

I’m not sure, but it might be possible it takes 18,000 downloads to get 33 reviews–I had 11 to start with.  That, in itself, was an eye opener.  I’ve read that a lot of people download free books and then never get around to reading them.  *Sigh.  I’m guilty of that myself.  Out of the ones who actually read it, only some write reviews.  But thank you, thank you, thank you to the ones who do!  Because readers didn’t react to my book the way writers do.

I have three friends who I trade manuscripts with.  They mark up my stuff.  I mark up theirs.  We look for everything–word choice, pacing, conflict, tension, plot holes, characterization…you name it.   If we find anything that we think could be better, stronger–we mark it.  Not to be critical.  But because each one of us wants to write the best book we possibly can.

Before I offered Fallen Angels for free on amazon, I offered free copies for read-to-review on Goodreads.  I love Goodreads.  It’s becoming sort of saturated with writers right now, but the readers and bloggers on the sites I joined are some of the most supportive people a writer could have the joy to meet.  These are serious readers.  They’re voracious and they know their stuff.  Their reviews are honest and insightful, and they’re almost always harder to impress than most people who walk into a bookstore or open a book on their e-readers.  They compare you to other big name authors and know the markets, every major series in the genres they like, and what’s current.  But they’re generous.  When they see potential, they say so.

The reviews I got from the free days on Kindle were different.  Every bit as intelligent and insightful, but in a different way.   These people read for fun.  They download a book and want to be entertained for a few hours.  If you accomplish that, they’re happy with you, and they give interesting feedback.  Their reactions weren’t always what I expected.  More than a few had trouble with Voronika.  I love Voronika.  I know why she’s built a wall around herself and is aloof and prickly.  Enoch loves and understands her, too.  But I still haven’t made her into as sympathetic a character as I’d like her to be.  Maybe I’ll get her right in book 3…let’s hope:)

Even most of the negative feedback was interesting, if for no other reason than to remind me that I’m never going to please everyone.  But these people read for fun.  They didn’t analyze plot or structure.  They just asked if the book WORKED for them.  Did they like it or not?  Were they glad they’d spent a few hours with my characters?  What made them keep turning pages, and what made them get up to trim their toenails?  Yes, a book CAN be that boring.  And when it gets right down to it, that’s what we need to think about.  We want people to pick up our book, turn a page, and get hooked in our story.  And we do all that we know how to do to keep them engaged from the first page to the last.

So…happy writing to you.  And may you hook readers from the beginning, through the middle, and to the end of your latest novel/novella/or short story.

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com

Writing–where do you get your ideas?

My good news is that my Death & Loralei novellas bundle went online last week, and I think it’s beautiful to behold.  The cover shows all FOUR covers for the four novellas inside the collection.  I’m biased, because I searched through lots of images before I found ones that felt right.  And then Michael took them and made them wonderful.  Thanks, Michael!

The bad news?  I finished drafts for three more novellas to post off and on for the rest of the year while I work on a novel.  I have them “in waiting.”  And since they’re written, that gave me an excuse to do another massive cover search, scrolling through hundreds of images, to find ones that spoke to me.  I’m beginning to worry that I’m an image junkie.  And the thing is, I don’t just save the ones that might work for the stories I have ready.  I find ones that inspire other ideas for other stories, so I save those, too, with notes for what I might do with them.  More ideas for stories than I’ll probably ever be able to write.

One of my friends gets ideas for stories when she reads news articles.  She writes mysteries, so when she reads about a unique crime, she cuts out the article and then plays with the idea.  What if someone else committed the murder for a different reason?  What would motivate him to stab Mr. X fifteen times?  What was the backstory that led to the fury?  And when she’s done, the crime is the same, but the story’s completely unique.   A friend of mine who writes romance asks herself what could make a really wonderful girl and an absolutely terrific guy meet, have instant chemistry, and then do everything in their power to run away from each other?  What traits would pull them together AND push them apart?

I get inspired by lots of things.  I might want a small character I used in one novella to have a bigger role in the next one.  So I ask myself, what is there about this character that could bring her grief?  It’s almost always in her backstory–which the reader might only get glimpses of, it’s only important to me–and then I do what I can to make her life miserable until she resolves her conflicts (inner and outer).   BUT the other thing that inspires me is an awesome image.

I found–  – this image when I was searching through ideas for covers one day.  And the mood of the image made me think of all sorts of story ideas.  The moon and girl suggested a witch story.  But the girl’s not on a broomstick, so what if people just THOUGHT she was a witch?  And for some reason, the colors and shadows made me think bittersweet, a tragedy of some sort.  There’s a tree.  People used to hang witches, didn’t they?  The birds made me think of Death’s ravens, that travel with him.  So I decided to make it a Death & Loralei novella.  My imagination took off from there.

Inspiration comes from all sorts of tidbits and places.  One of my friends uses music to inspire her.  Another reads a novel that she loves and asks herself What could I do with the book’s big question that would be completely different?  How could I take that character flaw and go in a totally different direction?  Another friend loves research and Regencies, so asked herself what kind of Regency romance she’d like to read, and then wrote it.  A newspaper article, a stray conversation–ideas for stories are everywhere.   May you find your inspiration, and may the Muse fill in the rest…with lots of elbow grease from you.

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/series-of-novellas.html

Writing & Creativity

I’ve been reading a lot of posts about creativity lately.  A few of them claim that if a writer plots ahead and doesn’t follow his/her muse, he stifles his creative juices and forces them to go somewhere they might otherwise avoid.  I usually stay out of the pantsers/plotters debate.  I think every writer has to find what works for him.  We all tap into our creative juices and sweat-and-blood, putting-words-on paper in our own ways.  But a couple of comments here and there have made me feel the need to defend my need for plotting.

For me, plotting is NOT plodding.  That term applies to the late middle of any novel I’ve ever written–it feels like it will never end.  And plotting doesn’t ruin my creativity when I’m not constantly surprised by what my characters might come up.  I don’t make elaborate, detailed plots anymore–even though I did when I wrote mysteries–but the plot points were always just dots on a map.  I start at point A, travel to point B, take a left at C, follow a winding road to D, and finally end up at point E..or F…or wherever the end of the book lands.   Plots are destination points, and my characters almost always suprise me on how they decide to get to each of them.  The points make sure I don’t take any detours that  lead nowhere, but the actual journey is still an adventure.

Plot points actually FREE UP my creativity.  I’m not sitting, looking at a blank page each time I finish a scene, wondering what I should write next, because I have a next bus stop in mind.  All I have to ask myself is how am going to get from here to there?  And what kinds of flat tires, accidents, and bumps in the road can happen along the way?

That said, when I find a blogger who explains writing better than I do, I like to share their post with you.  It’s no secret that I love Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series.  A fan asked her how she wrote her query for the first Kate Daniels book, Magic Bites, and she generously took the time to give a brilliant answer and then a second blog describing what’s crucial to make a good book.  Both would make good, pre-writing scribbles for what to decide on BEFORE you start a book.  You don’t have to agree.  But plot points work for me.

http://www.ilona-andrews.com/category/business-of-writing

http://www.ilona-andrews.com/business-of-writing/queries-common-issues

 

Writing–& Mood Swings

  (coming this week)

I don’t talk about marketing very often.  There are plenty of blogs out there, written by people a lot smarter and savvier than I am when it comes to promoting their work.  I respect and admire them…and appreciate how much they share about what’s worked for them and what hasn’t.   One of my favorites is Lindsay Buroker’s blog.  http://www.lindsayburoker.com/  She’s worth looking at.

After I read one of her past posts, I offered my novel, Fallen Angels, for free for 4 days on Kindle Select when I put up the 2nd novel in the series–Blood Bound.  I’ve never done that before, and it was a wonderful experience.  I paid to advertise on Book Bub (which was worth every penny), and over 18,000 people downloaded Fallen Angels.  Remember.  It was free, so I made no money on those downloads, but my reviews went from 11 to 38, (all but one good), and some people went on to buy the second Enoch book.

One or two reviews came in a day for a while.  It became a habit to start my computer every morning and check my amazon page before I started writing.  Each good review gave me a big push to start work for the day.   And guess what?  In the  middle of the novella I was working on at the time, even with all the good feedback, I could think of all the things I might do wrong.

The promotion was from May 19 to 22, and the fun times are finally beginning to dim.  My numbers are starting to sink, but I learned something important from the experience.  Writers ALWAYS worry about their work.

What is it about writing?  No matter what happens, no matter how good the news, each new story is a challenge.  Did I get the characters right?  Is there a story arc?  Is it a good one?  I’m not the only writer who does this.  I read a blog recently that made me feel a lot better.  http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2013/06/11-tips-on-how-to-become-better-writer.html  According to Karen Woodward, almost EVERY writer hits a point where he looks at the manuscript he’s working on and wonders what the heck he was thinking.

I’ve written long enough to know that when I start a story,  in my mind, I’m a wonderful writer.  When I finish it, I’m not so good.  But when I think of the next idea, I’m brilliant.  There seems to be no middle ground.  And I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.  Because if you agonize over each scene, each character, it makes you push yourself harder.

Sometime next week, I’m putting up a bundle of 4 Death & Loralei novellas.  Three have previously been published.  The fourth and last one in that series is new.  I liked SPIRIT BOUND when I finished it.  It turned out better than I expected.  Will readers like it?  I can never tell.  And I always worry.  But then, that’s part of writing, isn’t it?

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

Writing & Boys

I didn’t write my blog on Sunday, like I usually do.  Why?  I rented the movie Jack the Giant Slayer and watched it with Tyler and Nathan.  A fun movie, but a great evening.  I didn’t dust the house or weed my flower beds on Saturday.  I spent the afternoon watching repeats of the TV show Psych with Tyler–one of his favorites.  He intends to watch every segment before he goes back to IU this Fall–a worthy challenge:)  And I’ll watch quite a few of them, right along with him.

I take my writing goals seriously and make deadlines for myself that I intend to meet…and usually do.  But my grandsons are staying with us this summer, and this will be the last summer that Tyler means to come home.  He’s moving into an apartment in Bloomington before college starts and plans to live there year-round.  Nate will be a senior in high school this year and after he graduates, he’s itching to move away, too.  I have to enjoy them while I can.  Even now, while they zoom in and out of the house, they’re usually too “busy” for me.  That’s the way of kids.  They have jobs, friends, and plenty of things to do.  So when they finally want to spend time with me, I make time.

I learned a long time ago that kids talk to you when the moment strikes, not before and not after.  When I ask, “How was your day?”–I usually get “Okay” or a few mumbled words for an answer.  Over supper, we might get a few more sentences about this or that, but a kid only really talks to you when he’s in the mood.  And if you’re too busy to listen?  The moment passes.

So, for this summer, I write while the boys are out and about, and when a boy wants to “hang with me,” I save whatever I’m working on, put my writing aside, and make myself available.

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