Zumba is to writing as...
I went back to Zumba for the first time in over two years today. It was surprisingly fun. While I was dancing around sweating and looking like a complete lunatic it struck me that I LOVED Zumba and had since I first walked in the aerobics room the first time and danced to the Latin music while having the time of my life.
Today, just like that first time, I didn't know what the heck I was doing. Lacie, the instructor, looks like a million bucks and can do things with her butt no human who doesn't make her living with a stripper pole should be able to do. She used to tell us to just shake our butts and have fun, and we'd get the moves down in time. And she was right.
Now I'm starting over and I realize I look like someone who doesn't know what the heck she's doing, but I'm shaking my butt and having fun and I know, eventually, the moves will come.
Which brings me to writing...I know BIG jump.
But not really.
See people are always asking how to write and what to do and, I'll be honest, the last few weeks I've been driving myself crazy wondering if I'm doing the right thing getting three books ready to go back to back instead of publishing one at a time. I've been making myself nuts wondering if I should buy ads or do Kindle Select or get the ARC out there through Goodreads. I've been writing and rewriting and revising and editing and wondering some more. I've poured through emails on the Indie loops I belong to looking for answers and reading a million different answers and thinking I needed to wait one more day or week or month...and tonight when I came home all covered in sweat and happy that I'd survived a Zumba class it hit me that I'm in the same place with my writing career as I am with Zumba.
For years I wrote a book a year targeted to a specific Harlequin line and when that didn't happen, I quit. It wasn't that I didn't LOVE writing, it wasn't that I didn't love my stories, it wasn't even that I quit caring about Harlequin. It just got easier to sit and indulge in a Netflix marathon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer than it was to write a book, a query, a synopsis, submit and get requests then requests for revisions--sometimes twice--and then rejections. It got easier because I got confused about what I was doing. I focused on selling instead of writing and selling isn't fun--well, it isn't when you sell exactly 0.
It's like the drive to the Y and Zumba. Part of the process but not the good part.
So here I am sitting at the computer after my first day of full-time writing, after my return to Zumba, after a Netflix marathon--this time The West Wing. And I've got to say I LOVE what I'm doing. I shut myself in my office and go to another place with my characters. I play with words for fun. I listen to Yo-Yo Ma playing spaghetti Western music while I'm at it. And I'm having the time of my life.
Today, just like that first time, I didn't know what the heck I was doing. Lacie, the instructor, looks like a million bucks and can do things with her butt no human who doesn't make her living with a stripper pole should be able to do. She used to tell us to just shake our butts and have fun, and we'd get the moves down in time. And she was right.
Now I'm starting over and I realize I look like someone who doesn't know what the heck she's doing, but I'm shaking my butt and having fun and I know, eventually, the moves will come.
Which brings me to writing...I know BIG jump.
But not really.
See people are always asking how to write and what to do and, I'll be honest, the last few weeks I've been driving myself crazy wondering if I'm doing the right thing getting three books ready to go back to back instead of publishing one at a time. I've been making myself nuts wondering if I should buy ads or do Kindle Select or get the ARC out there through Goodreads. I've been writing and rewriting and revising and editing and wondering some more. I've poured through emails on the Indie loops I belong to looking for answers and reading a million different answers and thinking I needed to wait one more day or week or month...and tonight when I came home all covered in sweat and happy that I'd survived a Zumba class it hit me that I'm in the same place with my writing career as I am with Zumba.
For years I wrote a book a year targeted to a specific Harlequin line and when that didn't happen, I quit. It wasn't that I didn't LOVE writing, it wasn't that I didn't love my stories, it wasn't even that I quit caring about Harlequin. It just got easier to sit and indulge in a Netflix marathon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer than it was to write a book, a query, a synopsis, submit and get requests then requests for revisions--sometimes twice--and then rejections. It got easier because I got confused about what I was doing. I focused on selling instead of writing and selling isn't fun--well, it isn't when you sell exactly 0.
It's like the drive to the Y and Zumba. Part of the process but not the good part.
So here I am sitting at the computer after my first day of full-time writing, after my return to Zumba, after a Netflix marathon--this time The West Wing. And I've got to say I LOVE what I'm doing. I shut myself in my office and go to another place with my characters. I play with words for fun. I listen to Yo-Yo Ma playing spaghetti Western music while I'm at it. And I'm having the time of my life.
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