Writing Detox

Good Morning. Last Monday I touched on what we Should and Should Not do as writer/authors. Of course, that list is free to interpret any way you wish. I just wish "they" would stop hammering it down our throats. Perhaps if they made them "suggestions" it might be a little easier to swallow.

Anyhow, for the last couple of years, everyone has agreed on this one essential issue where writing is concerned. Something that we all SHOULD do. Write the next book.

I can remember being in query hell, and the resounding response to my "What do I do while I wait for responses to come back?" was write the next book. You need another in the coffer if the agent makes a request. And if not, you'll have another to query when you give up the first one. Write the next book.

Putting a book up on Amazon and debating whether to promote or not, and the resounding response was write the next book. This is a long tail enterprise, and the more books you have out, more readers will find you. Promotion can wait until book four or five. And besides, blog tours don't work. Neither does a Twitter campaign. Just write the next book.

Trying to play the Amazon game, and the resounding response was write the next book. Don't worry about getting reviews, bad reviews, no reviews, whether KDP Select "free" works or not. It's a game, and the only rule is to get the next book out there. The more you have, the better off you'll be. Write the next book.

Okay, so here I sit, after 18 months, with 4 novels and 4 novellas (published) under my belt, with another novel ready to fire up in the next week or so, and what should I do? Why, write the next book, of course.

But you know what, I'm tired of writing. I'm tired of figuring out plot points and inciting incidents and figuring out how to make my heroine less irritable. What I really need is a vacation. A nice long vacation with beach sand in my Virgin Mary, and sun burn on my nose.

But then I think how my books will suffer if I don't write the next one. My readers will be heart broken and leave me if I don't cough up another "something" within 2 months. My sales will plummet to nothing, I'll lose my ranking, my audience, my shot at being #19 again on the New Releases Best Seller List. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there in publishing land, and if you're not top dog, or even mid-list dog, you're nothing.

And then I think I'll lose my mind if I have to sit at the damned computer staring at a blinking curser for days on end wondering how to write when I really don't want to.

We've all heard how we SHOULD write every day. How we SHOULD churn out something, even if it's 500 words of crap. How we SHOULD keep notebooks in the car, by the bed, in the bathroom when inspiration hits.

Yeah, okay, I was on this kick for awhile too. Writing, writing, writing. Letting the house get so bad I could have been a candidate for Hoarders. (Okay, maybe not that bad, but you get the idea. The dust bunnies even packed up once and left.) Ignoring the phone, my mother, my daughter, all for the sake of the next book. I've forgotten how to live in the real world because I've spent so much time with my characters.

And that's just not right. The guilt I have because I'm not sure what to do. I feel guilty if I spend time with my daughter and not writing. And I feel guilty I'm writing and not spending time with my daughter. Or cleaning the house, or mowing the lawn, or for God's sake, just doing laundry and keeping the dishes up.

Until I read one of those posts I mentioned earlier. And this guy, Bob, is his name, said, "You need to detox every once in awhile. You need to take a break to replenish your imagination." (paraphrasing here)

And I KNOW this. I take breaks off the blogs. But this guy was talking about something more. Just walking away from it all -- blogging, social media, writing, marketing, all of it. Just walking away for a good long while, or until the next big idea hits and you can't wait to get back to the keyboard. That, he said, was the key. WANTING to write. (And he's got 50 books under his belt, so he should know what he's talking about.) Writing because you WANT to, not because you SHOULD.

And that, I think, is where I am now. I need a writing break. Detox, if you will. Oh, I'll still blog, for the time being. But I'm not writing. I can't. And why churn out shit, when I know I'll just scrap it all anyway. That, my friends, is an exercise in futility. If I can't write 1000 words of something half-way decent, then why bother.

Tell me -- Do you ever willingly detox? Does it replenish your imagination? Or do you keep working away because you think you SHOULD?

Anne Gallagher (c) 2013

Hitting the Refresh Key

Well, Good Morning. Here I am once again, as you all probably knew that I would be. I know, I know, I say I'm going to quit blogging, and then I always come back. I love you guys too much to stay away.

I can't say it was a relaxing month, I still worked. I formatted and uploaded my last two books into paperback. I wrote up a boatload of blog posts. I spring cleaned my house. Ugh! Windows, carpets, got a shiny new Bot-Spot to shampoo my favorite chair and the love seat. I also started chopping down the trees in my backyard for the fence I'm going to build. Yup, I don't know what it is with me and fences, but I just gotta build them.

I've also finished THE LADY'S MASQUERADE. I had to make a lot of changes to it, so it will work with the last book in the series. It's in the hands of my fabulous critique partners now. However, I'm not rushing it. I'm not putting myself in that stressful environment again. When it looks good, I'll publish it.

I've also been toodling around with KATE, another romantic women's fiction. I love this book. It's kind of like REMEMBERING YOU, but not. You know. A lot of stuff happens to Kate and she needs to find herself before she can figure out what she wants. I do have the title, but sorry, I'm not sharing. Let me just say branding has become my middle name.

Anyway, what I've decided for the next several months is to start posting again M-W-F. Like I said, I've written up a load of posts, some I've reworked from previous posts, and I've also brought back my Friday's at the Piedmont Grille series. I have some fantastic authors to spotlight with new books, and interviews, so I hope you'll all stick around for those.

I also wanted to let you know, that this is the tentative schedule until around Memorial Day. I promised Monster a long time ago, I would only "work" when she was in school. When she's on vacation, then I'm on vacation. But I kind of think this is a good schedule. I can see the end of the tunnel as far as blogging goes -- a couple of months on, a couple of months off -- and I like it. Maybe I won't burn myself out.

So, that's all I've got. Oh, well, one more thing... about commenting. I believe that's where my trouble with burned out blogging started. I couldn't get around to all the blogs to comment. I like to reciprocate when you guys stop by here. But when I don't, I feel guilty, and it eats at me. So, I'm going to tell you now, when you comment on my blog, I will comment back here. I can't promise you I'll show up with any regularity on your blogs, but I will try. I'm not particularly fond of those bloggers who post and then never comment anywhere. I think it's rude. But if you comment on this blog, I will answer you. And rest assured, I will read your blogs as time permits. I like to keep my nose in everybody's business and Google Reader and I have become friends once again.

It's good to be back.

Tell me -- What have you been up to? Get an Agent? Requests? Published? Any shiny new ideas?

Anne Gallagher (c) 2013

Friday's at the Piedmont Grille

On Today's Menu -- Liver and Onions, Beer, and Cole Slaw

Sounds really appetizing doesn't it. Well, that's kind of how I feel right now. All bloated and fat and just a disgusting mess. Not because of anything I ate, but just from the general let-down from getting the last two books out before Valentine's Day.

 I gave myself the publishing date for Valentine's Day, way back in December when I knew it wouldn't be done for Christmas, and as the day loomed overhead, it was absolutely ball breaking to finish it. My timelines were off in the ms., (I write an overlapping series), I had just created another story with another hero who had to be enmeshed with this one, my ending wasn't going the way I wanted it to, and ugh, Christmas happened.

So for the whole of January I was rushed, and writing, and revising, and editing, and then off to the beta's and critters, and then I had to let it sit for at least a week, and then formatting and uploading and whew, I can finally breathe.

But then comes the crash and burn. All that stress, and then, I've got nothing to do. Nowhere to be. Nothing to write. And I kind of just lost myself.

I know some of you may know what I'm talking about. Actually most of you may know what I'm talking about. The rush, the excitement, the finishing up of a how-long-have-I-been-writing-this project, and then it's all done. And then what?

For me it was sleep. Then laundry. Then a good scrub down in the kitchen. You might have thought I would at least have gotten a nice dinner out of it. Not. I think I ended up with fish sticks and french fries.

And now I think I'm finally returning back to normal. I even managed to get three blog posts in this week.

So what do you do when you finish a big project? Do you celebrate, or do you vegetate?

Happy weekend!

Surprise in the E-mail

And so yesterday I was overwhelmed with the responses I received in the comments section. Thank you all so much for stopping by. It's so gratifying to know I have you all in my corner. I promise, once I get my files together and my desk re-organized, I will find and 'friend' every one of you if I haven't already.

Also, an interesting and like totally freaking awesome thing happened yesterday and I'm going to tell you about it because it also bears warning. Remember how I brought up a particular agent's name in my post yesterday, how I told you his reccomendation on how to query, 10 out, 5 back, 5 out...well, last night I received an e-mail from him in my personal e-mail account thanking me for the kind words I bestowed on him. Yeah, well, I went totally nuts and scared my daughter jumping around and screaming, "He sent me an e-mail, he sent me an e-mail." Isn't that just totally insane??? However here's the warning, just be careful what you write about agents and/or publishers and/or anyone because obviously he google read his name or has some thingy on his computer that lets him know when someone is talking about him and well, it's a good thing I only said I loved him and he was a genius. I also think he's got the google police because he's got 4 or 5 writing books to his name so if I quoted him without giving his reference I might have been in a lot of trouble. So my friends, be careful who you talk about and if you do, give the correct reference. (The article I took the information off was an interview he did with the Hartline agency -- two questions were on his blog, the rest of the interview was on their's. Go to his blog to find it. www. guide to literary agents. com. You know how to do it.) And if you don't already have him in your blog roll, do it. He's a genius and knows everything and everybody.)

Anyway, I also received one form rejection. I'm sort of sad, I was kind of hoping she would have at least wanted a chapter. Oh well. On to the next.

And I went back into Ellis' story. I haven't done anything with him and Violet since I decided to rework Masquerade. God almighty thank me it's a first draft. I have to completely re-do the beginning, and after reading another agent blog last night, I might have to re-do the whole premise. IF worse comes to worse, I could chuck it and finish Richard & Amanda, that's historical with a lot of research.
Or I could bang out (no pun intended) Genna & Tony. That should actually be a lot easier because (I know I'm not supposed to say this, but I'll tell you because you guys are my friends) I'm pulling from my own experience, and even though it's fiction, it's not. Sort of. And it's contemporary, I don't have to worry about saying, 'indeed' or 'pray, tell me'. And who knows maybe if I get that done before Easter I could query that as well as Masquerade. It's not unheard of to be working for two different publishing houses, besides I have a slew of pseudonyms under my belt just for the occasion. One for historical, one for contemporary, one for YA.
I'm crazy like that.

Lastly, I'm going to clean my office today. IT IS A MESS. From order to chaos, chaos to order. When I'm working on something, I pile up research notes, dialogue, settings, random things that go in or out of the book. But now the book is done, complete, out to query, I can put all that stuff away, make hard copies of the stuff I need, put those away, and close the file. Once the office is clean, I may begin afresh. I do the same thing with my house work. It piles up and piles up and finally when I can't stand the mess anymore, I become Mrs. Clean and go nuts. However I do have to say, I do keep up the the vacuuming 3x's a week because I can't stand it. Dishes, laundry, not so much.

Have a lovely day gentle readers. And be careful who you quote.

Cleaning House

After my post yesterday in which I admitted I don't know Jack, I cleaned my office. I didn't realize it needed it until it was spotless. I didn't realize what the clutter was doing...cluttering my head.

I had notes and papers, a thesaurus and other reference books, two half empty bottles of water, an empty box of tissue, a rubber snake, harmonica, flute, three pair of glasses and a very stale chocolate chip cookie under all the piles of paper. I also had about 1000 little sticky notes stuck to the table for quick reference to about 3 different stories. Needless to say, I had to create 3 new paper files for all the clutter.

But Boy Howdy do I feel better. I know, I know. I do this all the time. I let things go until I lose my mind then I do a BIG clean-up and my mind becomes clean. And it did. Just like that. Snap. Putting everything in its place, not only on my desk, but in my mind, rearranges my priorities, settles the dust and lets me SEE the big picture. I am now FOCUSED.

Well, sort of. I'm focused on where I want the 2 current WIP to go, now I just have to sit down and write them. I also picked up an old favorite romance last night and read it through just to see what I'm doing wrong in my finished work and I think I found the major problem(s). TA DA.

I FEEL so much better. The stress is somewhat alleviated, the brain cells are firing on at least 7 cylinders, the knot is gone from the back of my neck. I have the vision and the clarity and the focus now to SEE what I'm doing. It's a great relief.

Now, if I can just get the Small One to leave me alone for an hour or two to let me get some of my thoughts down in Word I'd have all 8 cylinders firing.