Journey Into 2010 – Commit to Writing

Like many of the writers on this blog, I too am stopping to reflect some on last year. For me, it was a fairly productive year as I wrote many words and accomplished a lot of things. But many of those items weren’t on my ‘To Do’ list as they were thrust upon me because I volunteered or I just wanted to do them.

True, had I kept to my own list instead of allowing the distractions to pull me away, I would have done more of what I had seen for myself at the beginning of the year. But I really figure it this way: I did exactly what I was supposed to do, no more, no less.

Now many would say I’m crazy for saying something like this but it is my belief everything happens for a reason and in the exact manner it was supposed to happen. There is order in the mad chaos known as our world and part of our task as writers is to put meaning to that order.

As writers, we create and rewrite our stories until they shine. If we’re lucky, we get to present them to the world in a nice shiny package called a book. We get to tell our friends and family, we advertise about it and blog. Basically, we tell the world our baby has arrived and like a real baby, once it’s there we don’t care one bit about how painful it was to get out into the world. It has arrived and we breathe a sigh of relief.

If we’re really fortunate, we are blessed with the ability to repeat the process as many times during the year that we so desire. If we want a slow year we produce little, a heavy year we work our fingers to the bone. But we produce so you as our readers can enjoy what we have to share.

One of the personal commitments I made to myself last year was to present a series where a new writer could start at the beginning of the year reading this blog and by the end be a published writer. Well, welcome to the first column of the year.

If one truly wants to be a writer, you must commit to writing. You need to set goals, plan books, put together a small business plan and study the publishing world so you can make the most informed decisions possible. All of these things and more will be discussed during the next year but first, you must start with the commitment process.

You need to commit to write daily, no matter what. And that means demanding families, homework, blogs, house cleaning, answering emails, web surfing and a million other things must all be put into a proper perspective in regards to your writing time. If the tasks of the day are too much for you, get up fifteen minutes early to write. If you do better at night when the house is all quite because they are all asleep, stay up an extra fifteen to get what you need done.

Another part is to start small. I have seen many a writer fall by the way side because they wanted to write 5-10K a day when they could barely set aside enough time to do 50-100 words daily. Know your limitations and abide by them. Things can change, so this is always adjustable. The point here is to just put aside the time to write daily, no matter what.

If you are the type who must have a contract for something like this, make the contract with yourself. If can be as simple as ‘I will write 1000 words per day’ and sign and date it. You can make it more specific by adding when you plan to do this, where, when you’re going to re-evaluate the contract to continue your journey.

I would love to hear about your experiences with making the commitment to write. Next week, I’ll talk about goal setting but first, I’d just love to see you all sitting behind your computer to write. Good luck!

See you all next week!

Lynn

Ending With A Bang

I’ve thought more and more about the ending of my books. Some are a stepping stone to other stories and some end nicely or so I thought. But here recently, I’ve found myself more and more disappointed with how some stories I have purchased are ending. To be great, a novel needs a great ending and it all makes me a little more critical of my own work.

On Christmas, I received one of the best gifts an author can get when I got $100 Borders card. Now, I could have gone a thousand ways with this but was extremely happy when I decided to get a few books for pleasure reading only. I already had some discounts and freebies coming to me and was glad when I only spent a third of my card. That means I can go back to pick up more when I don’t have the men with me pushing me to hurry.

The other place I’ve been buying a lot of books has been Wal-Mart. And while some of you might not like that scenario because they deeply discount their books, it is a mecca for someone looking at category books. You can pick up almost every historical and Harlequin category romance there the very day it comes out.

So, I’ve been a reading a lot of books this vacation and as of this writing, I have read almost five novels. I have interwoven these readings with my own writing in other genres as well as doing some critiquing. Pretty amazing considering I have two men who are trying to take up 100% of my time. LOL!

So far, I haven’t been impressed with the endings to most of these novels.

Now, I’m not talking about having a happily ever after (HEA) or even a happily for now (HFN) either. Of course in some of the books I’ve read that is a requirement. No, two of these books just ended but implied a HEA and one of the others had an ending I didn’t even understand in the least as it didn't even seem to belong to the book I had in my hands.

In one book, the hero and heroine had separated because the woman had previously been married to a schmuck who told her that she ruined his life over and over. Never mind that he was the one who had asked her to marry him, had a baby with her then refused to touch her after that baby was born. I can understand just how a man can undermine a woman’s self-confidence immensely but not quite to that extent. I guess I have a better survival instinct than this woman. And while she wasn't a too-stupid-to-live heroine, she didn't seem to represent the norm either.

Now, what I thought was dumb was the fact that the hero got mad and ran just because the heroine told him to go. As if that would happen. But the truly amazing part is that he drove from a small town in the east to another small town in Arizona and back in less than two days. The round trip would have taken about forty-eight hours of straight driving to get it done. The way there he had a passenger who could help out but coming home, he was alone. Not a good idea in my book as he had zero rest between drives. Then the man doesn’t even kiss the heroine or anything because all she did was open the door and let him into her house and supposedly her heart. I understand, the ending was symbolic but have the guy kiss the woman at least then it would have been a little more satisfying.

It took me all of two minutes to get my frustrations out when it dawned on me that this book was safe. I’m sure you wonder what I mean by safe. This book didn’t push any of the limits of human endurance, thought process or of a sexual nature. Although there was sex, it was very safe as was the whole book. It probably gave others a warm fuzzy and once I had that in my mind, I could do the ‘ah’ thing and try to make myself not gag.

To me, endings need to be big, that satisfying moment when everything comes together and make sense. If the hero and heroine were destined to be together, we need to glimpse into their forever after even if it is only a sentence that references there will be one. And so far, in all the books I've read, there has only been just one of those moments where I slowly put the book down and grinned from ear to ear, wanting to pick up another book from that particular author.

Again, I’m sure you’re wondering just what the heck I’m doing. One of the things I have put on my goal list for next year is to get published by a NYC publisher. Since the pool is limited, I knew I would have to study these books and study them I have. I’ve picked a few lines of Harlequin which I thought I might submit to as well as some other publishers like Sourcebooks and Dorchester as well as TOR and Bantam in the coming year. Also high on that list is getting an agent as well. I figure if I can accomplish all those things next year, it will be a great year.

But as this year draws to a close, I realize that this year too is ending with a bang. Last year, I was the head of an organization which ate almost all of my time, leaving me little to write. Still, I managed to finish four books, get another group sold and move generally forward in my already decent writing career. I had accomplished as much as I could. My hope is to do even more next year.

Now for the announcement you’ve all been waiting for...the winner of this year’s Christmas giveaway is... Ashley A.! Ashley, email me at lynncrain@cox.net and we’ll discuss the particulars! Congratulations!

Here’s wishing you and yours the most fabulous New Year ever! See you then!

Lynn