Adventures in Writing: Kicking Your Muse to the Curb

I’m sometimes asked by fellow aspiring-to-be-published novelists how I can write so prolifically. I make it a point to write something every day. Sometimes it’s work on my novel, sometimes it’s a well-crafted and pointed business letter or a scorching missive to my state representative, and sometimes it’s just the blog. My friends question where I get my ideas at all and once I’ve corralled them into one general area, how can I possibly get them heading into the same direction. Do I have a Muse?

The answer is short and sweet: There is NO such thing as a Muse.

Getting anything accomplished, including the task of writing, takes blood, sweat, tears and more tears. If you’re the type who is waiting for inspiration from some diaphanous illumination that will lead you by the hand into your creative heart, you’ve got another thing coming.

In my earlier incarnation, I used to believe in the power of the Muse. It’s true that I’m my most creative when my life is full of conflict and drama. I wrote my best poetry when in the throes of freshly minted love affairs, the last being about twenty-five years ago just after I met my husband. The day-dreamy existence is a fine one for word crafting of any type.

However, the altered state doesn’t work for everything. Serious writers have to adhere to a schedule. I know this because I waffle in that netherworld between writing for fun and the alternative. It’s a great hobby to bandy about words and be the cause of conversations – it’s the birth of your baby. The re-writes, corrections and critiques are infinitely more difficult but part of the total equation – that is called whipping your child into shape.

I am an admittedly lazy writer. There are the rare times when I’m on fire, but truthfully speaking, I can initiate more ways of procrastination than anyone I know.

In order to get anything done, I had to kick the idea of my Muse to the curb and join the ranks of the real, working world.

Here are a few tips from a person still struggling with time management issues:

1. Set up a daily time for writing. For novel writing, I need at least two hours of quiet time, and the best time for me is between 2 and 5 p.m. Early in the morning doesn’t work for me; neither do late nights.
2. Set up a daily minimum word amount. It can be as little as twelve sentences a day. For others, it can be a word total. (Mine is usually 1,000 words or more.)
3. Surround yourself with other writers. If you can’t find a local writing group, there are plenty online. Only with reassurance from others in your same situation will you be able to overcome the hurdles.
4. Even if you don’t feel like writing, JUST WRITE. It doesn’t have to be polished and worthy of the Pulitzer. Jot down your most mundane thoughts while standing in line at the grocery store. My new thing is to write down catchy names or phrases in my notebook so I don’t forget them later.
5. Tell yourself you can, and you will. Mindsets can be changed, but only you can change your own.

Finally, remember that writing is hard work, not unlike digging up your yard (by hand) to replace it with a vegetable garden. Don’t rely on something as fleeting as a Muse to get it done. It may seem daunting, but writing well is not an unattainable goal.

Those Writers On Fire

I subscribe to several email blasts from writers, agents and publishers. I also belong to Romance Writers of America and the local Detroit chapter of RWA. I receive upwards of 100 different emails about writing each day.

What can I say? I need constant information.

What really bowls me over about the writers is that they can pump out pages and pages each and every day. Chapters and chapters every week!

Not using this as an excuse, but I have a challenging day job. If I get an hour to myself, it’s a rare thing. There are so many things I want to do in addition to the many things I have to do that I have to priortize.

For example, manicures are low, low, low on the list. My nails haven’t seen polish in over a year.

Shopping is low on the list, especially the kind of shopping that involves walking into a brick and mortar building. I’d shop for groceries online, but we don’t have that here.

TV is also low. My husband likes to have it on, mostly for background noise. He also loves golf and fancies himself a newshound, so the TV is on the Golf Channel or a news channel. I need one thing from the TV: I want to know if it’s going to snow (rain), how much and for how long.

On the other hand, food is a high priority. I’m a food snob. My one pleasure is a good meal accompanied by a nice wine. Mix in a few friends and you have a perfect setting. Since food preparation is a labor of love, it tends to take some time.

Laundry and housecleaning are necessities, not priorities. They fall mid-way on the scale.

I am trying to make writing more of a priority and less a diversionary game.

For those who don’t know me well, I’m a lazy person. Yes, and I used to be a world-class procrastinator too, until I rediscovered writing. I’m not young. That’s why my motto is “I’m writing as fast as I can!”

A person cannot write without time.

You need time to get into the mood, to get into the zone. Sometimes if I know I have a couple hours of free time, I’ll begin getting into the zone a half hour or so before. I slip into the character and begin to see the world through her eyes. It helps for when I’m confronted with the blank screen on my laptop.

I’m the type who needs quiet. If the dog wants to sleep on my feet, that’s okay, but other than that, I don’t want people around. It’s hardest to write on airplanes, easier in airports, and painless once you get away from home. I make the most progress in hotel rooms. I recently spent four days in California getting my daughter back into college. Even though I had a commute from LA to San Diego County each day, I managed to pump out ten pages. Ten whole pages!

*celebratory dance*

That’s a lot for me.

I thought I had become proficient in time management, but when I read about these work-aholic, prolific writers on fire (many of whom have small children), I feel inadequate.

Perhaps I shouldn’t measure myself against them.

Or maybe I should use them as a tool to get motivated.

Writer Manufactured Time

That sucking of air you just heard was the sound of relief now that summer is finally over.

The “day job” seasonal madness is pretty much behind us. I can’t imagine being as busy as we were this summer all year round. The thought of it is staggering, but it’s also something I’ll probably not have to worry about. The kids are going back to school next week and we can take a collective breath and use September to catch up.

This is not to say that my time-sucking day job eliminated any possibilities for writing. As a writer, I’m finding it necessary to carve out stretches of time for myself to devote to the craft.

In addition to the various articles written for Blog Critics and Associated Content, I have sped along on my chick-lit-y novel and then was waylaid by an idea tossed out by my friend and constant writer’s nag, the Fluffy Little Cat. Out of our conversation was born another novel on the same story, a YA tale as told by the daughter.

This one’s been fun, and I’ve already tested out Chapter One on my niece, who happens to be “that” age. She gave it a thumbs up and wants to read more. (Ah, the silent sound of applause… just enough encouragement to keep me going.)

And I am finding more and more that writing is a craft, not one to be taken lightly. I have many good ideas and can easily write on the fly, off the top of my head so it seems, but to hone those ideas and make them perfect? That’s what I need to achieve.

I recently read the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He’s the one that examines the 10,000 hour rule. The 10,000 hour rule is the theory that in order to do anything well, one needs to devote that amount of time to the endeavor. It equals about 20 hours per week for ten years.

It makes sense for musicians, athletes, actors, journeymen carpenters, why not for writing?

Unfortunately for me, I started late and I have a lot of catching up to do. My problem is that there is no way on God’s green earth that I can find 20 unadulterated, quiet hours a week to write, not with my schedule. If I can find two hours a day, it’s a momentous occasion worthy of celebrating with pitchers of margaritas.

Back to the busy summer: despite the rigors of a new internet platform on the “day job,” the daughter home from college, and a shortage help, I make the time to write.

I leave for home early, I shop online so I don’t have to run to stores. I try to budget my play time and make use of what’s left over, extremely difficult for a world-class procrastinator like me.

It’s tough, it’s brutal, it’s not easy, but it’s the only way. It’s the Yellow Brick Road from wannabe to writer.

Being Politically Incorrect

This might have nothing to do with writing, or it might have everything to do with writing.

Through my travels in real life and online, I am finding that I am politically incorrect.

Now, I’ve always been politically incorrect. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.

It all started in high school, although things were bubbling around before that. I’ve always been opinionated, and my opinions are strong. It got me into major trouble in high school, where I wrote for the school newspaper. I tended to pick topics that didn’t sit well with many students and teachers. I once wrote a scathing editorial about the use of millage dollars to improve the athletic department, and hey, where were similar funds for the art department? (There weren’t any.)

The football team and the coach hated me. If looks could kill, I’d have been six feet under long ago. I believe that’s why I got a B in biology that semester. (The coach was also the science teacher.)

Old age has done nothing to temper my opinions or my loud mouth. Even when I wasn’t writing creatively, I was writing letters to the editor. Editors to papers, editors to Cosmopolitan, Crawdaddy and Rolling Stone magazines. I was writing letters to companies that wronged me, to restaurants where the service was substandard, to utility companies and to elected officials. I still do all of that, and with the internet, now I do more.

Of course, I try to be respectful of the other side of  issues. My job on earth is to learn, and if I can’t see something the first time (like algebra or violin), I look at it again from another perspective. I care a lot about the city, state and country I live in. I care a lot about our culture. I can’t help not to care as it’s my responsibility as a citizen.

However, I won’t roll over and play dead if we disagree.

Within other realms of my writing, I am finding that perhaps to get published it might be nice if I toned down my opinions. You know, be extraordinarily politically correct.

I had an email exchange with an online editor I work with. He asked me to write an opinion piece on something that happened in the news based on a comment I made to another article. I wanted to, because I have strong opinions but found a part of me didn’t want to attract attention to myself that might be negative. Anything I say or write could be construed as something else entirely. Much as I’m bitchy, in actuality I’m really not negative. Just passionate.

In the end, I wrote the piece (or a variation on what he wanted) because of one rule I have. It is: I must be true to myself. Being true to myself is why I couldn’t continue with journalism for a major in college. To write journalistically would mean I would have to lay aside my feelings, and I can’t do that.

Perhaps if I got a thumbs up for my work despite my beliefs in other areas I could stop looking over my shoulder at the shadow of my personal beliefs.

For creative writing, it’s different. Perhaps when I finish writing the two novels I’m working on now, I’ll feel differently. Editing novels is one thing but editing my soul? It just won’t happen.

Maybe that’s why I might stay a published author wannabe.

My Junk is Not That Interesting

Something I wrote while procrastinating…

I’ve just had a revelation.

My junk is not that interesting.

Once a year, on a weekend in mid-July, my city hosts what is billed as the World’s Largest Indoor Garage Sale. Professional vendors and regular folks who want to cast their possessions out to the public come to a parking structure and take over three or four floors. Some come from out of state just for the opportunity.

I’ve made the trek almost every year, even when I didn’t live in Royal Oak. The first time out, my now-22-year-old was just a baby in a collapsible stroller. Back in the city’s heyday, when the economy was flush and downtown merchants didn’t have to be competitive, the Garage Sale was a big deal, drawing people from all over with its carnival atmosphere. It’s where I first saw Jack Kevorkian in one of his blue sweaters, but except for that stint in jail, he’s all over town all the time.

Parking is a pretty iffy proposition here, where the streets are mostly residential and narrow. I live four blocks away so I walked. Garage Sale traffic was light this year, even though most of the downtown merchants were holding a sidewalk sale in conjunction with the big event. There was no need for the funeral home next to the parking ramp to be offering premium spaces at $5 a pop. I doubt they made much this weekend.

Garage Sale weekend is normally one of the hottest of summer. Not so this year, 2009 – the year of the Bummer Summer. Global warming be damned, the skies have been gray, foggy, and cold as much as they have been warm, bright and sunny. I had to wear a hoodie and jeans.

I’m not a garage sale fanatic but I don’t mind hitting a few every once in a while. My mother-in-law was in antique sales and schooled me on the advanced science of looking for decent junk. We would delve into the trash cans first before approaching a real sale. Most people don’t know what they are doing and have no idea about value. She was once given a box full of “trash” and spent the next three months selling it in her store, netting over $90.

I despise hosting my own home garage sales. I’ve done it a couple of times with minimal success. It’s a lot of prep work, hard to do alone (what about potty and meal breaks?) and harder to do in the rain (it’s cold and no one comes). I hate to bargain so my prices are ridiculously low. I just want the junk out of my house. Once it makes it to the garage, anything left over can’t return home. It keeps on trucking until it hits the Goodwill.

I’ve often said I should gather up my junk and do the Royal Oak Garage Sale one of these years. After all, the Chamber of Commerce does all the advertising, cutting out one expense. For the price of a stall, I would have hundreds of people milling by, thus increasing foot traffic past my assortment of bric-a-brac.

Yesterday that dream came to a crashing stop.

As I strolled by the tables yesterday, I realized the items carried little appeal. There were some interesting pieces, but none with the panache of past years’ offerings. Vinyl albums? Meh. I get my record fix when I go out to California and hit up Amoeba Records. Antique musical instruments? Hardly any. Anything that looked like it might be old or unique was grossly overpriced. Everything else was new and ho-hum and grossly overpriced. What with TV, internet, and warehouse club shopping, one doesn’t need a personal demonstration of Sham-Wow.

Many onlookers were like me, not buying, just browsing. I spent less than $10 for a few pieces to use in my jewelry-making ventures. It was largely unsatisfying.

I came home and gave my closet and garage the once-over. I don’t have much stuff, and my junk is just not that interesting. In a recession, it’s even less so. The face value of my cast-offs has declined with the stock market, housing prices, and everything else.

Maybe I’ll save it for the grandkids.

Tracking, Not Back Tracking

The last several weeks have been busy with my Day Job. I don’t know about other writers, but I find I have to have at least three hours of uninterrupted time in order to complete a chapter of about 4,000.

Since I’m doing this part-time, it’s a balancing act.

There’s no way this time of year.

Instead of having good news to report about the progress I’ve made on Oaks and Acorns, I instead must hang my head in shame.

What I have been doing when I get a chance is going back over the first six chapters, getting rid of the excess (I am the Queen of Excess, no doubt), tightening up my sentences and streamlining my words.

I’ve also laid out the characters and plot, something I didn’t do the first time around. It’s going to make so much more sense.

This is my first venture into chick-lit, which is different from that dark and dreary book I first wrote. Finding Cadence is more a journey into the deep recesses of the soul, a trip that could just as easily end badly as it could have redemption. I’m trying to keep O&A light, fast, inventive.

This is hard to do when there are other things pressing on the back burner threatening to torch the rest of my life.

As with other areas of my existence, I find that self-imposed deadlines are the best bet. I want this baby put to bed by the end of September.

On another note, I joined the local group of Romance Writers. Unfortunately, the RWA national convention is this week and as a result there will be no meeting this month. I’ll have to wait until next month to gain some wisdom from this group of ladies.

It’s going to be hard, but I’ll try to keep tracking and not back tracking.

Clubbing Agents Over the Head with a Kick Ass Elevator Pitch

Before a writer can get her foot in the door, she has to find an agent. Finding an agent is not all that easy. There are thousands of them (check out QueryTracker) specializing in every genre known to mankind, and a few that I’d never heard of.

Don’t ask me how to land one, because I’m still in the Realm of the Lost and Looking for Representation.

Most writers send out query letters. I haven’t done this yet, because I’m not finished with Book Number Two and Book Number One has to be eviscerated and the first thirteen chapters rewritten. However, I have done the elevator pitch during a foray in speed dating at the recent San Francisco Writer’s Conference.

It was scary. It was enlightening. I realized my pitch was sorely lacking and my synopsis too wordy. Agents, it seems, are looking for a shred of creativity. They are looking to be amazed, dazed and literally clubbed over the head. The book I pitched that got the most response (well, okay, the only response) was for my Siouxy story, and I wasn’t even trying to sell that. I think it elicited response because 1. Siouxy is a teenager and there were lots of YA agents in the room and 2. Siouxy gets into a lot of trouble. Wacky, off the wall, incredibly stupid  trouble. The negative comments came when I mentioned that the tale was a coming of age from the late 1970s. “Can you re-write it to make it more current?” the agent asked.

Well, no. I think outside of the context of the times, the story would fall flat on its face. But at least I received positive feedback, something to go home on a cloud over.

For those of you who don’t know me, the Siouxy stories started out as a joke. Written in serial form, it was a tale that kept getting more and more out of control the more I wrote, and now I have 50K words worth of her story.

The entire speed dating episode made me look at my other novels with a discerning eye. Why weren’t those agents wowwed by Cadence? Could it be that the story is the “same old same old” and the agents were bored? Could it be that I was totally exhausted from typing those magic words “The End” just four days before and my enthusiasm for my work had waned? Or could it be my pitch was somehow lacking?

I have faith in my work, but sometimes that faith has to be motivated.

Then too, I wonder if my pitch was good enough to gain attention, what would happen if they got the manuscript and the book wasn’t as snappy or interesting? I can recall many times when movie trailers are the best thing about the movie. Of course, they put the good parts in the trailer to get you to buy a ticket, and it’s disheartening to leave the theater thinking you’ve been robbed.

Some of the attention getting pitches I read are fabulous! Writing a pitch is different from writing a book. It’s a skill that takes a high level of salesmanship as well as a decent grasp of the language.

Writer’s Block and My Writer’s Bloc

I have to admit this last month has been terribly unproductive. What with one kid graduating from college, another flying back into the nest for the summer, the “day” job launching full force into the busy season, and the gloriousness of springtime in the yard, it’s been tough to find a few peaceful hours to work on the book.

I’ve given myself a short-term goal, and that’s to enter the Esquire Magazine short story contest this year. As usual, I have too many words, and the first draft sounds a little girly. I need more punch and less emotion. I also need a friend to offer an ethnic take on it, since I’m writing as a black man (both things I’m not).  I can tell already the re-write’s going to be a bear.

As for the rest of it, I’ve been on a hiatus. Call it my siesta/fiesta, my vacation from my imaginary world. It could be, but I wouldn’t say that I’m suffering from writer’s block. Oh, I have plenty of ideas floating around. Too many, in fact. My brain is so full of stuff, I can barely keep it all organized.

As an example, I haven’t written a congressman an angry missive in months, and I’m plenty upset and dismayed over the world. What’s up with that?

When in doubt about your craft and writer’s block, it’s best to turn to your neighborhood writer’s B-L-O-C.

My bloc of online critics, helpers, friends and cheerleaders (with cattle prods) are my salvation. When I know I’ve been bad, a quick email or Twittery tweet and they get me going again.

If you don’t have a writer’s bloc, I suggest you begin to cultivate one. Go on any number of writing web sites and introduce yourself. Querytracker.net is a great resource. From there you can subscribe to the blogs of other would-be and established writers. Comment on their blogs, read their work. Twitter your favorite writers or your targeted publishing house to keep up with what’s current.

Most writers (and wannabes) are friendly, and they will offer constructive criticism as well as encouragement. If you’re like me and don’t belong to a tangible, in-person writing group because you don’t have time to commit or are isolated, an online writer’s bloc could be just the resource for when you have writer’s block.

Flash Fiction

This month’s been busy, unfortunately not in the world of crafting words. That’s because Real Life beckons and who can ignore the stylistic rantings of getting the bills paid?

In the meantime I’ve tinkered with a couple of new short stories and fussed with a couple of old ones. I plan on submitting a couple for contest consideration. Time to get out my best words!

One of my friends turned me on to “flash fiction” as a way of consolidating my ideas into a minimum of words. Here’s a great site to consider. I spent most of yesterday morning looking around, it was that fun.

Most flash fiction short stories are less than 1,000 words. That’s not much to play around with.

I’m the type of person who suffers from too many words. An embarrassment of words.  Narrowing them down is a great exercise, one that will help with the re-write of the Epic Novel.

I’ve done the 50 Worders, and that was murder. (Hey, that rhymes!) A word limit is a great idea, one that I wish I’d have turned on to before I began writing Epic Novel.

As for non-writing news, my oldest graduated from college last week, the youngest is home for the summer, and it’s getting hot and sticky. There’s a huge world out there and not enough time to get it all down.

Careful Crafting and the Mozart Theory of Creativity

As an opinionated wag (and I’ve been that forever), a lover of words and someone with a head full of ideas, I’ve long held the belief that a good story can sprout from one’s brain with little or no anguish as to the finished product. An embarrassing amount of my published work has been never been edited. I’ve been able to write in just such a way ever since I picked up a pencil.

Let’s call it the Mozart Theory of Creativity.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an amazing composer, pumped out a wealth of music in his short time on earth. A precocious child, he began writing music while still a toddler. I’m not talking tra-la-la nursery school level pieces. These are short ditties I had a hard time mastering when I first took up violin. Mozart’s genius was so great, it is said he penned  his many works without a single re-write. Imagine. Without a single re-write? And when you listen to his work, it’s intricate, God-like, perfect. What’s to re-write?

Many artists including writers suffer from the Mozart Theory of Creativity. They are so invested in their work, they believe it sprouts from the mind in flawless condition ready for mass consumption.

But it’s not so easy.

As a high school student, I thought I was damned good artist. I had my own ideas and was loathe to listen to my teacher (sorry, I forgot his name). Then I went to college and learned there were lots of good artists. Scores. More than I thought.

I had two options. One was to continue on my own path and produce the same doodles I had been making for years. My creations were good enough as they were, damn it! Or were they? The other option was to listen to my professor when he suggested different approaches to my work and consider other perspectives. Guess which path I chose?

I am finding it’s not much different in writing now that I’ve finished my novel and have dived into the re-write.

My story was complete, not perfect, but I thought it was good enough. Or close to good enough.

I was wrong. Thank goodness I have a posse of writing friends who have gently nudged me into looking at my work and pointed out my flaws. Thank goodness for the writers conference I attended. It opened my eyes to a wealth of possibilities and energized me. And thank goodness for the Internet and all of great blogs and web sites I’ve found devoted solely to my task at hand: The Re-Write.

Not everyone is Mozart. In fact, there was no one like him before or after. I’ve read many books on my favorite composers, and all of them suffered a great deal of angst over careful crafting of their work. Sometimes symphonies were tweaked for years before being played in public.

There’s a certain amount of agony that goes into creating anything beautiful.

That’s where I am now.

The First Post

I am setting this WordPress page up as a preliminary outing before setting up my blog www.joannehuspek.com.

I have always been a writer, and I’ve spent the last two years toiling tirelessly. (That’s not true. I’m surprised I have time to write out checks, much less anything else!) The thousands of words that I have saved on various computers at home and work are enough to boggle the imagination.

You can catch me at Blog Critics, Associated Content and G-N-N Online.

Romancing the Page

With a fair amount of trepidation, I recently attended the San Francisco Writers’ Conference, held the weekend of February 13. After all, I’m not a “real” writer, just a wanna-be, intimidated before I arrived with thoughts that my recently completed novel wasn’t worthy of rubbing elbows with some of the top agents and editors of the publishing world. I was pleasantly surprised to find everyone genuine and helpful.

There were many workshops to choose from, and it was difficult to decide which ones to attend. Since my novel is about a woman who faces many changes in her life, I thought I would attend the workshop on romance writing. This, even though my book is not what you’d call a romance novel – it’s dark and goes places most people wouldn’t want to visit – but I was a writer looking for a niche.

I have to admit here that I do occasionally read romance novels. Call it a guilty pleasure, like my occasional binges on Godiva chocolate. The books are especially handy to have on long airplane trips, because they are usually in paperback, are small and easy to read. I can dust one and a half romances off in the time it takes for me to fly from Detroit to California.

The term “romance novel” has long suffered a negative connotation. The term conjures up legions of bored housewives looking to spend an afternoon reading about a heroine who is saved from distress by someone who looks amazingly like Fabio. (That’s how he started the modeling game, posing for book covers. Personally speaking, Fabio has way too many muscles for me. I like my men scrawny but smart.) Romance novels are known for their “trashy” covers showing men and women in the midst of lustful frenzy.

Romance novels have been pooh-poohed as being literature not worthy of reading. They were deemed hastily written and shallow. While it may be true that some prolific writers pump out three novels a year, it’s a false assumption to think that the modern romance novel lacks depth and character. In fact, it may be more difficult to write a good romance novel, since the story has to move along at a rapid pace.

What qualifies as a romance novel? Well, there’s a woman, a man, and plenty of conflict. Something keeps the two apart, even though what they really want to do is tear each other’s clothes off. This could be a real conflict, or one in the woman’s head, and some force that keeps the two apart. All romance novels end the same way, there’s a happy ending and a hook up. There doesn’t have to be marriage, and if the hook up is absent, then there must be a promise of a future in the distance. Optimism is what romance novels are all about. Romance novels are seldom over 120K words, and most hover between 75K and 90K words.

What amazed me about the romance novel workshops I attended was that there are many sub-genres within the genre. “Romance” also includes “serious” women’s literature, which my particular work would fall under. In my case, the woman has a happy ending, but there’s no hook up.

Chick-lit refers to a light, saucy treatment of the story. The best description is the Shopaholic series. There’s definitely hook up in this type of novel. Contemporary romances concentrate on small town settings and values. There are romance novels that revolve around ethnic cultures like Loving Gabriel, and interracial relationships, like Unfinished Business.

But hold on to your bonnets, it doesn’t end there. There are teen romances and paranormal romances. The wildly successful Twilight is considered a paranormal teen romance. In the area of historical romances, there are sub-subgenres which include Scottish, English and Irish historical romances. Super-sexy romances include erotica. There are inspirational or Christian romances where there’s much soul searching and the sexual content is played down. There are mystery and suspense romances, military adventure romances, Navy Seal romances, western romances and gay/lesbian romances (Romentics). There are even Amish teen romances, which I gather is a real hot seller.

Any work can be turned into a romance with minor tweaking. As I read Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code, I thought “Boy, this is close to a romance novel. He writes like a girl.” Plus there is that lingering hint that he and Agent Neveu might get together after the mystery is solved. Some of the greatest classics ever written, such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice can also be considered in the romantic vein.

To prove the point, that night I told my son and his girlfriend about the romance novel workshop. We came up with some crazy romance subgenres, including Intergalactic and Interspeciel Romance. The next day, I happened to run into the editor who held the previous day’s workshop, and when I mentioned our dinner time conversation from the night before, the editor’s eyes lit up. “He should write that!” she said.

For all those avid readers who need a change of pace, I would recommend grabbing a romance novel. They’re interesting, entertaining and not just for bored housewives anymore.

Rewrites and Re-Rites

After returning from the writers conference, I took a short break from Finding Cadence to work on the next novel, Oaks and Acorns. Cadence was full of angst and suffering, which is probably why it took me two years to write, and O&A is completely different. It’s going to be chick-lit all the way — fun, sassy and sexy.

One of my online friends from across the state, Jessie, is helping me with the “pre-edit” — that is, my rewrite before I send the book on for more serious editing. Both of us have “real” lives, so she’s sending me a couple of chapters at a time. Heck, do I mind? I’m getting input and advice for free. Thank you, Jessie.

This week, I’m going to deconstruct Cadence. I can’t let it wait any longer. At 175K words, it’s a monster. I learned at the conference that no one is going to publish a book of that size, unless the author’s name happens to be Joyce Carol Oates or Pat Conroy. Unfortunately, I’m saddled with my own name.

I somehow got into a great groove writing Cadence. It took me almost two years to find that groove, one where I will sit down and write at least a thousand words a day. I credit NaNoWriMo, because during November I managed to write 50K words in thirty days. Before that, I would maybe work on it a couple times a month.

The last month has been a vacation of sorts. I played with my new characters, and played on the computer far too much. I have fallen back into my past bad habits of laziness and procrastination. But, I promise to snap out of it, starting today, and to post regular updates.

In the meantime, I’ve made out a list of the technical problems. I have some things happening in the beginning that don’t appear later. These should be thrown out. Then I have some things later that should really be mentioned in the beginning. And Chapter Two has to go. Well, for now. I’m saving it for possible use later.

Getting in the Mood to Write

I’ve been thinking about Cadence a lot in the last week, although not really working on the book. I have definite plans and want to play with them in my head before I sit down and get to work.

If I’d only known then what I know now. I’m sure it wouldn’t have taken me a little under two years to complete this work.

The truth is, Cadence wasn’t easy to write. It wasn’t fun, because this woman goes through an incredible trauma. In order to get to the emotion I wanted to convey, I had to go into a deep dark place inside myself. Going there was treacherous.

I had to get there to write a reasonably true account. But in the meantime, while I was there, these dark shadows would spill out into my “real” life. I was moody, sad and reflective, and though I tried to keep those things on the page only, it was difficult to divide my feelings.

That’s why the first four chapters of Oaks and Acorns was such a relief. Each time I closed my laptop after working on it, I felt playful and buoyant, not depressed.

I really believe in Finding Cadence, in the story and its message, and I want to see it to its fruition in print someday. So it’s back to the drawing board, back to the salt mine, back to work.

To get back into the darkness of Cadence, I wrote a disturbing story over the weekend about a woman who contemplates jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. It was strange, but such a depressing subject actually felt good.

Wish me luck.

The First Query

I sent out my first query for Finding Cadence yesterday by Internet. I twittered and posted that I’m waiting for a rejection. Hope that doesn’t sound self-defeating. I know there will be plenty of rejections in my future, and while I have faith that I’ll be published (someday) I’m just keeping a level head. It’s also important not to take rejection seriously.

I guess I’ve been used to that all my life. This is what I believe, don’t expect too much and life will never let you down.

Back to editing and re-write…

Slash and Burn

Okay, I’ve spent the last three days mulling over the first three chapters of my epic women’s book. It has to be pared down from 175K words to somewhere around 100K.

The easy part was getting rid of the adverbs. LY words are appearing everywhere I look. They are the obvious sore thumbs.

Chapter 3 bit the dust completely. No one understand dream sequences anyway, and I can reinsert some of them at the appropriate times later on.

At the time I started writing, which was two years and two months ago, I had only a vague idea as to what my message was going to be. I was also into flowery prose and 300 word sentences. (Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but thanks to my friends, I have learned the finer points of using my words wisely.

I can see my confusion from back then glowing in the dark. This made it somewhat easy to chop, slash and burn away. Even so, I’ve only reduced the word count by 5K. Of course, I still have 32 more chapters to go, and if I continue on the same path, that means I will have weeded out 40K words. (I’m hoping more than that, but who knows?)

On the flip side, I’ve been neglecting WordPress and it shows. My stats stink. But, consider this, I am on a mission (from God?) and I want to have my rewrite complete to ship off to the real editor by the end of May. I’m sure he is looking forward to the income, and perhaps the entertainment.

Don’t Forget to Read This One!

http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/39420/joanne_huspek.html