Hilary Fields's Blog, page 9

Of Galleys and Galvanizing

Today I received — again with a thud courtesy of Thwacky McUPSDude — a most delightful package. After I got over the shock of its loud, unceremonious arrival at my door, I dragged in the brown cardboard box that awaited, wondering, “Could this be…?  But no,” I told myself, trying not to get too excited, “it’s not supposed to come for a couple more weeks…  Prolly just socks or that thingie for the other thingie I vaguely remember ordering.”  It couldn’t be…

…Mais OUI!  It was!

Galleys.  Ten shiny, smooth, luscious-looking uncorrected proofs — proof, indeed, that BLISS is getting published!

So, major WHEE!!! times over here.

Let this delicious little treat serve to overcome the absolute UGH that has been the current Mercury retrograde. While I tend to look so askance at astrology I practically sprain an eyeball, I must say that it’s eerie how often my writing goes awry (and computers, and correspondence, and even my vacuum, which has twice now gone kablooey) during this inauspicious, twice-yearly event.  Whether I’ve given myself the yips or what, I’ll be glad when Mercury goes direct again on the 21st… Merry and her adventures have been waiting for my attention and inspiration long enough. Sometimes, all it takes is a sign from the universe (or the UPS dude) to galvanize you and make you grateful for the life you’ve been given.

Here’s to galleys and the galaxy going my way. Cheers all!

The Muse–Fact or Fiction?

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to whether The Muse™ is a real thing; a little fairy in diaphanous Grecian garb who plunks herself down on your shoulder and dictates all your best ideas while you loll, helpless and half-conscious, like some Delphic oracle mad on fumes from the underworld.  Or perhaps it’s just a prosaic source of prose that emanates from some intuitive area of the mind we can only see with a stealthy peek out of the corner of our consciousness.

Thalia, Muse of Comedy

Certainly, ideas do seem to pop out of the ether, whether that be ethylene-induced, absinthe-derived, or pulled right out of the proverbial arse.  I do experience that “it came to me in the shower” phenomenon so many writers describe.  (Which may suggest the muse is a bit of a perv.)  Characters, plot points, jokes and denouements all pop out on the page without me deciding anything.  Now, far smarter folk than I have investigated this topic exhaustively, though I don’t think I’ve heard a comprehensive explanation that quite covers it for me.

Product of the unconscious mind? Sure, I can get with that. But until philosophers and neuroscientists map that out, we have no idea how that works or even what to do with that information.

So shall we go with Grecian demigoddesses, metaphorical though they be?  Why not.

All’s I know, as they say, is that I’m not always in control.  Sure, a lot of the time I’m writing consciously, making decisions like, “Okay, where is blah-blah standing when she gets a face-ful of llama loogie?”  It’s me shoveling in the exposition and me smoothing out the linguistic linguine.  But where, for instance, did the Back Room Babes from my novel BLISS come from?  Beats me.  One minute I’d never heard of them, the next a dozen raw, brash women tromped into my chapter and became a major theme of the book.

Okay.  Cool, I guess.  I love all my BRBs, regardless of them poofing into being without a by-your-leave.

But, given the assumption of inspiration from outside the realm of everyday consciousness, my next question is, can the muse (goddess or neuronal gift) be summoned?

I struggle with that. Certainly, a suitable tribute to her–a summoning ritual if you will–seems to be the ceremonial planting of the tuchas in the chair. She can’t come if she hasn’t got a landing strip to make a touchdown. (Christ, that’s about forty too many metaphors.)  Sure, she may slip in and out of your shower or whisper a brilliant goodnight idea as you’re drifting off to sleep, but unless you’re ready with pen and paper, or fingers and keyboard, she’s ephemeral and her gifts may be squandered.

So.  Assume heinie in hot seat.  What’s next?  Shake some maracas, burn incense, sacrifice virgin?  I think of it as a sort of “lay back and think of England” experience.  You have to accept that you’re not the brilliant one, the decision maker, and just see what happens, maaaaaan.  You dig?

But what if you don’t want to be possessed?  What if you’re a control freak, like little old me, and you don’t want to wait for something, depend on Tinkerbell to arrive with wand in tow and great ideas twinkling in her eye?  What if you hate the helplessness of never knowing whether you’ll be blessed that day or just peck out workaday words that have no pizazz and will probably have to be tossed anyway?

I personally find myself unnerved by the whole experience.  I sit there, trying to open a channel from my brain to my fingertips, my fingertips to the divine, or the mysteries of the human brain.  And when it comes, on those occasions it does deign to, it’s like being kidnapped from your own decision-making process and possessed by someone funnier, smarter, and more gifted than yourself.  Quite a rush.  Yet also, just a little bit of a violation, if that makes any sense.  Most writers seem to love these visits, or possessions, or whatever they are.  Don’t get me wrong–I do as well.  It’s a sort of drug-free (although not precisely hangover-free) high, a manic ride down a literary log flume into the creative soup.  Yet still, there are times when I’m not up for such an alien abduction.  When I am terrified of what’s happening to me.

Those are the days I watch Dexter marathons and eat too much popcorn.

I wish I could come to terms with the creative process.  Stop fearing it, stop resisting it.  Accept that it’s not ever going to be totally logical or predictable, and appreciate that it’s given to me at all.  Because I know that it’s a gift; perhaps the best gift I may ever be given.

Anyone out there have any muse-ical musings they’d like to share?

Tagged: consciousness, fiction, inspiration, novel, writer's block, writing

What to Expect When You’re Expecting…

I was just thinking… I haven’t really gotten a chance to share what it was like to find a publisher for BLISS–what, in fact, the whole process of writing it and shopping it around was like.

Short answer?  Like birthing 65 bowling balls without an epidural (or an explanation for why I would be pregnant with bowling balls).

But let me back up.

I’ve known I wanted to write novels since I was able to read novels.  And I’ve never had a desire to do anything else, at least professionally. (I delight in being a dilettante with baking and crocheting.)  When I was very young, right out of college I had the almost-too-easy experience of selling my first novel, a historical romance, to a major publisher without an agent and without shopping it around.  That’s a story for another day, but I will say that it gave me a skewed-as-hell idea of what it was like to get published, how rare and difficult it is.  Later, I worked in the industry as an agent’s assistant and saw firsthand how tough it really is–even for great writers, which I was not.

A few years and a few life left turns later, I……was no longer writing historical romance and no longer under contract. But I wanted to be! While my first books did not exactly earn me fame (or really any money), they did afford me the luxury of not taking another career path seriously. I was always “a writer with a day job.”  But time passed and I wasn’t selling any of my new book proposals.  Now I needed an agent, and I needed to go through the process like anyone else.  So I did. Over and over again, for a lot more years than I care to admit.  I’d write a lengthy proposal, or a full book, and send it out with high hopes.  Only to have those hopes (quelle surprise) dashed.  Just like every other writer.  Between each submission, I would grow despondent, take time off to mourn my stillborn babies.  Yet I came back to writing because, quite frankly, I’m not very good at anything else.  I do my day jobs, and I do them with diligence, but nothing beats being the mother of a novel for me.

This latest go around, with BLISS, I believed I hit upon a winning idea.  Baker, disgraced. Boyfriend, vengeful. Salvation in the form of a new city; new friends; new love.  It was everything I myself enjoyed, all wrapped in one sweet wrapper.  But the writing process was more like chewing nails than licking frosting off a yummy cupcake.  It always is for me. For something I’m so passionate about, setting tush in chair and sweating it out, letting it out, is remarkably difficult for me.  Especially so when there’s no promise of publication at the end of the gnash-and-wail tunnel.  But I did it, swearing all the while that if this one didn’t sell I was going to get serious about doing something else.

So then, at last, it was done.  And my agent was very optimistic.  So out the virtual door it went, zipping through the ether to a wide array of in-boxes across Manhattan.  And then…

A big fat wad o’ nothing.

For months.  Oh, we got in a few semi-prompt responses, but the majority took upward of SEVEN MONTHS to reply. Seven months of increasingly grey hair, Pepto Bismol guzzling, and chewed fingernails.  More wailing and gnashing.  But it was worth it. The perfect publisher for this project ended up taking it on. A new imprint of a venerable house, enthusiastic and responsive, and best of all, wanting to put the book out in less than a year!  (It usually takes 18 months at a minimum.)  Next thing I know, I’ve gone from slogging through swamps of anxiety-molasses to swirling and whirling like a Disney princess in the heady sensation of–YIPPIE!!!–being on top of the world.  Skyping with my new editor. Seeing my new book cover. Creating this darn website. And knowing that in just four months, the culmination of twelve years of prayers, hopes and dreams will be hitting bookshelves.  If sheer desire could have published this novel, it would have been on the Times bestseller list by now.  As it is, I’m just glad I was so damn terrified of having a real job that I didn’t give up.

The publisher has been amazing.  Just the other day, a padded envelope arrived at my door (okay, was flung–our UPS dude is a bit of a wannabe pitcher) with a little booklet inside.  A guide for authors. Or, as I like to call it, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting… a Novel.”

I got such a thrill, and such a feeling of being, I don’t know… cared for.  Backed. And excited to see what comes of this.  So I just wanted to share this experience, this reminder that persistence pays.  I gave BLISS everything I had, and now it’s time to find a new well of “everything” because I’ve got another bowling ball… er, excuse me, book to birth.  So off I go, to the hot seat. Thanks for reading!

Tagged: publishing, writing

Beginnings

Welcome, dear readers, if any there be. Wonderful things have happened to me this year, and I’m so glad to be able to brag… er, I mean, share my good news.  So, what am I on about?

Well, a year ago somebody asked me what my goals were. I said, without hesitation, that I’d like to get my novel published and to be a normal weight by the time I was 40.  With a little help from Weight Watchers and the folks at Redhook Books (for whom I would gratefully bear firstborn, do laundry, wash windows, etc), I’m getting to see both these efforts come to fruition.  After 7 months obsessing over “points” and sweating out details on my magnum opus (or maybe it’s a minimum opus – that’ll be for you to decide) I lost 42 pounds (my favorite number, because of Douglas Adams) and BLISS is coming out in November.  And I’m still just 39.  (I will probably stay that way for a good ten years, but it’s actually true for now.)

Yee to the HAW!

This blog will serve to share more triumphs, admit to struggles, keep you abreast of doings both great and small, and inflict pictures of fuzzy animals and sweet desserts on you whenever possible.  I hope to share snippets of my novel-in-progress, “outtakes” from BLISS, and whatever else strikes m’ fancy.

For now, here’s a little something from my “research” for Book 2.

Tagged: alpaca, beginnings, goals, novel, writing