Looking Back... Looking Forward

I keep a journal--have bins filled with them--and once in a while I do like to look back to see where I've been, and how things have progressed. It's to help me see how I was, back, say five or ten years ago. It helps ground myself so that I'm not getting myself crazy about how I want things to go along more swiftly and be more successful than I am.

In 2007 I was getting small things published in a small quarterly called "Weeds Corner". Ruth Brookshire was the editor and owner of the little magazine out of Indiana. She accepted my very first poem which saw the light of printing ink. After that, she accepted everything I sent her, and I was paid a few dollars for it. It wasn't much, but my words were getting out there and being read.

I was working on my (eventually self-published), book Spell of the Black Unicorn. I didn't know what I would do with it, since I was getting rejection letters from everyone I sent it out to. I did what I swore I would not do. I self-published it. I didn't want to do this, but I had turned 50 and by God or high water I was going to damn well have a book published before I got too old to enjoy the thrill of doing so. I found a relatively cheep deal for this and I had to do all the formatting, but they were very helpful. I chose to go with Infinity Publishers. I payed my $400. and within a few short months I had a solid paperback book with my own designed cover and my own words inside and out. I sold a few dozen copies, had two book signings and had a ball. I still have about a dozen copies left in a box...

And here I am, 2011, my second in the series vampire novel is out now. I'm not exactly rolling in dough. Not rolling very much, actually, but it takes time to get the word out to people who don't know about your book. Promoting a book is not easy. Especially when you have no money to help things along the way. But, at least I didn't have to self-publish these last two books. And I'm not saying I may not ever try to do something in Smashwords, or some such. I'm just saying right now I'm okay with doing things this way.

The thing about getting the second book out is that you've made contacts with people on the first book, and now--because they loved the first one--they are willing to help promote it on their sites and with their efforts and so forth, other people eventually learn about both. It's like a tiny snowball, rolling down a hill. I think.

And I've also published an older short story--which never saw printers ink back about 9-10 years ago when I tried to get it into the pages of a magazine. But I re-wrote it and it was taken and now it is out there with a bunch of other writer's works.

I'm now working on a novella, and hope to get it written by spring and see if I can't send it to the same publishers (Dark Moon), as they take the shorter works. They only take horror fiction.

After that I hope to get the third book in the Sabrina Strong Series into the capable hands of my editor at Copperhill Media, and meanwhile I hope to begin a mystery series. I don't want to lean on just the one sort of genre. I'd like to stretch my writing abilities. I know I have a couple of stories in me and they have to be told in their specific genre.

I write this with the realization that only a few short years ago I had no book published, and now I have 3. I have to pat myself on the back, but I also have to kick myself and work on those things I hope to publish next year.

Tale of One Writer's Tragedy

If you read this blog you know that I enter my thoughts, or journal entries from many years ago.

I came across this one this morning. Not the one I was looking for, but someday I may come across that one.

We, as writers try to keep positive, even after several attempts at selling something to a magazine, or to a publisher/agent. After a while you think your writing absolutely sucks, that no one out there things you can even write a simple grocery list of interest. We've all been there. Even those who are now deemed kings or queens of their genre. Stephen King nearly threw away his first novel "Carey". His wife yanked it out of the trash and told him to not give up.

Writers are a different breed. What we put on the page is subjective to whom ever reads it. Publishers will not take anything without you having an agent. Agents are the gate keepers--and I don't really give a flying fig about how they have to treat every manuscript they get in the same. The person rejected feels very low when they get one. Especially when they keep getting them, and have no idea what to do about it.

As the rejections mount, your confidence begins to suffer, to the point of having no confidence in anything you do--and I mean life in general. I've been to the point of tears, screaming at God for giving me this stupid need to write every story, or idea for a book, down on paper. Why have I been given this, and for all of my adult life have never attained barely more than $30 checks for anything? I can't make a living on the one thing that makes me happy. Agents reject me. I don't even try any more.

You still with me?

Ever been so low that you'd consider just ending the misery? I don't' know if Stephen King did. I should read his book, but I simply can't afford to run out and get a copy.

I'd read about such a writer who did take his own life. His name was John Kennedy Toole. He took his life back in 1969. This was mentioned in one of the writing magazines I used to get back in 2005.

The story goes that after years of trying to find a publisher for his novel
A Confederacy of Dunces, he committed suicide.

Now, here is the ironic part. His mother, who believed in him so much, continued trying to get her son's novel into print. And in 1980, Mrs. Toole succeeded. Not only that, the book went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

So, if Toole had only continued to hang on for 11 more years, he would have been able to reap his rewards.

Why did John Toole take his life? I can understand how painful it must have been for him. But, why couldn't he have just kept on plugging away like the rest of us?

I wish he had. I'm sure his mother wished he had.

Whenever I feel so blue about not having success like Stephanie Meyer, or even those writers who aren't even half as famous, whose books are lining bookstore shelves, yet are making some sort of living writing, I remind myself that just beyond the horizon it might just happen for me. I remember John Toole.

It could have happened for Toole. He wasn't here to experience it. And that's really too bad.

Monday Musings

I can't say how many years I've subscribed to any writing magazine. But the one which I've continuously subscribed to has been Writer's Digest. In this current issue--the July/August--is a profile of Charlaine Harris. A must read, if you, like me, is a fan. Whether you read her books, or watch the show which was spun off her Sookie Stackhouse books, or both, it's an interesting read on how many years Harris has been writing, how she got into it, and so forth.

I think she writes like me, taking from what I read about how she writes. She says she has no idea what she's going to do for the first chapter. For me, I usually have a first chapter, and just go with it. I can't outline. I don't dare. Because my characters won't allow it. I just give them the lead, and they go off. Usually in the middle of the night.

Just as it happened last night, in the middle of the night--the usual time around 2am. I was having difficulty in how to get some grist into the middle of my novel.

Well, Writer's Digest had just the solution in their Workbook section. It's as if they read my mind, or are on some nebulous plane where I am, and say, "here, this might help!" This has been happening to me for the past 3 or 4 years. And I must say, the magazine arrives just in the nick. I hadn't even been expecting it, and there it was, on the dining room table, after my husband had picked it up from the mail box.

So, naturally, with two more days off to write, I'm getting the rest of the second vampire novel (Vampire's Trill) down. Meanwhile, I'm still awaiting word from editor at Crescent Moon Press. She's behind, had just come back from a conference, so, this is okay. It looks like it's a green light, I just wish she would find the accelerator.

But, this is okay, once she sits down to edit my first novel Vampire Ascending, I'll be faced with rewriting/editing that. So, I'm making the most of my time, working on the next book. Sort of excited about the turn of events I came up with, and I'm going to work in a new interesting character a little bit more into this second novel. I'm about 3/4's way through. I know it will need more re-writes, editing and so forth, but my aim is to get this done by end of summer.

So, on that note . . .

You Can Never Quit Writing

A true writer can never actually "quit" writing.

You may take a break, a hiatus, perhaps, that may last a week, or a month, or even a year--or longer.

At times, when you need a respite, you seem to know it. But you have no control over when you're ready to return to it.

Suddenly, the writing but bites and the blank page calls to you. Before you realize it, you've got a page done, then another and then another. Wow, you're really on a roll. Ten pages, maybe twenty before you stop and take a look.

You might take that break because you need to. I once took a 4-year-long break. But I missed it. Even though I was doing something I enjoyed, once I went back to the writing, I knew this is what I was meant to do. I feel more satisfaction in the act of writing than doing anything else.

So, if you need to take a break. Do it. Don't force the writing. Your writing muse will tell you that it's okay to pick up the pen, or sit at the computer again. You'll feel refreshed, excited again.

But you can never quit. Writing that is.

Journal Entry: November 28th 1999

I was scrounging through a list of publishers, trying to find any that seemed right for what I'm writing. I wish I knew if anything I've written is worth the effort. I wish I knew whether or not I'm just wasting my time. But then I'm reminded by what Dennis said to me,"Write for your own pleasure." I realize it does keep my mind busy.

what I need to do is (maybe?) quit taking it all so seriously. If I'm not having any fun with it, then, well, I'm only hurting myself more than anything. I really don't see myself publishing anything any time soon. Even this latest short story--who's gonna want it? I realize now that I can't write for a publication. I do write for myself. Maybe that's no so bad. It's just that I won't be successful. But how does one measure success? How much money one makes, or how happy one is with themselves? I can't keep beating myself over the head about any of this. I have too much to worry about as it is.

And as far as that's concerned, writing is my one and only escape. When I go into my room to write I'm in my own little world where no one can enter--except to interrupt me--but it's all mine. All mine! I'm probably never going to be published--not in the way I've dreamt of it. Maybe all the hype and glitz ain't worth it anyway. I don't know. I've never been very out-going, I'm shy, introverted and basically I don't enjoy being around people. People find ways of hurting you whether they mean to or not.

So, what am I saying? I'm as unsure of my writing talents now as I was twenty years ago. Maybe I've improved quite a lot since, but it's not making much difference.

author's note: Hard to believe but this was written about 11 years ago. How time flies.

On Dreams and Wishes

If a person dreams or makes a wish, but the dream or wish never comes to pass what happens to it?

Does it go into a holding place waiting for just the right alignment of the stars?

Or . . . does it go to someone else whose desire is more? Or has asked for it more?

Can a dream always be yours and no one else's?

Or . . . is it yours exclusively. No one else can have it, since you are the creator of that wish, dream, idea?

Everyone should have dreams.
Dreams, hopes, wishes, goals, desires. It's what life is made of. We shouldn't be afraid to dream for fear that the dream may never be realized. To not dream, or have hope is to become dead inside.

We all need something to build on, move toward, think upon during the day--especially at work (because the work you do is not what you really want to do. What you want to do is stay home and write!)

We need something to look forward to, grasp onto--even desperately by the gossamer hairs of that dream/hope/wish/desire. No matter how small or large--you as a writer need to keep on going at it. Find where your mistakes are. Correct them. Try a new editor. You might be surprised!

No matter how impossible it might seem to you, or others who know you; no matter how wild, impossible, or fantastic--Dream big!

Zen and the Art of Writing

A while back The book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, was rejected 121 times. The author, Robert M. Pirsing sold it to the 122nd publisher and it went on to sudden success.
Some people don't know when to quit, do they?
Pirsing believed in what he wrote and didn't let the rejections get to him, even after 100 of them!

I'm a struggling writer. I began writing when I was 16. Before that I was known as "the artist" I loved to draw. I would sit up nights into the wee hours drawing out my fantasies in cartoons. People said I should go on to become a cartoonist.
I didn't. I went on through high school, then to college, majoring in art. But by the time I hit college I think I loved writing more. I must have. Every page of writing that I had done while I lived in my father's house was collected after he died and it all filled 3 paper grocery sacks.

In 1983 I joined a writing critique class that was in another state. I may have learned things I could never have back then. But I came away despondent, depressed about my writing, confused as to which way to go. And so I quit writing. For a while.
I found that I could never really quit writing. When I quit writing I'll be dead. Plain and simple.

The longest I've ever gone away from writing was about 4 years, back in the '90's when I was working in a craft store and did crafts myself. I sold a lot of crafts, but I didn't do more than break even. You have to continuously keep replacing supplies, and trying to come up with unique ideas.
My husband missed my writing. So, I returned to it. I tried to sell a romance (Indian romances were big then), but my writing was still far from polished. I had a lot of problems, still.

There's a saying that goes something like "you can make the trip in the dark with your headlights on, but you can't see beyond them." It's like that with writing--the craft is a difficult one to master if you don't know what the hell you're doing. If you can't spell, that's when it's really tough. People would say "look it up in the dictionary" You can't look it up unless you know how it's spelled!
I'm dyslexic, and I can't say enough about how a person--even with mild cases--struggle to perform either in school, or even at a job, or even on a personal level. It took until I turned 40 to realize I was dyslexic.

This blog is dedicated to those of you out there who are struggling as writers.
I'm not here to teach you anything, but if you get something out of it, even if it is encouragement, or you read something here that you can relate to, good. This is for you.

I have countless rejections from the 1980's up through now. I've tried to approach book publishers--back when you could, and later agents. My rants and ravings about the way the publishing industry is set up is probably better seen at other blogs. I've never viewed it from the inside out. But let's face it. It has changed over the last 30-40 years. My mother-in-law was able to go before a book publisher in the 70's. and she didn't follow through when he told her he didn't like what she'd written for him (imagine a country woman going all the way to New York and has a chat with the editor about her book), and told her to give him something else. If I were in that position I'd go home and lock myself in a room and tell my husband "You'll have to start pitching in around here--I'm writing a novel!"

Well, the story goes, she didn't go for it. Her reasons are not clear. I think it was fear of everything. Maybe the fear of actually succeeding. I don't know. I may never know. It's just one of those things I never have gotten the same answer whenever I've asked, so I know it's something deeper than the normal things.

So, you're wondering "is she published?"

Yes. I am. I've been published in various places and I will, in time place them here. I've published poems and non-fiction pieces as well as fiction.

I've also self-published my own book. At age 50, I knew that there was no way I was going to get what I had worked on so painstakingly hard on for 4-5 years. It's a light fantasy. It's funny, it's full of zany characters, magic, sorceresses and sorcerers, a demon, and a nasty evil sorcerer. I'll have it on the side for anyone to check out.

There will be some other blogs about things I've already mentioned. I also plan on placing my memoir on my time at the writing critique in Dubuque. Names will have been changed. But that's a ways off. I've two other blogs to take care of.

Oh . . . and of course, I'm writing another novel. My vampire novel will, I hope become an e-book. I'm still waiting on word. But I've already got someone interested in hosting me on their blog, if and when it sells.

Well, time is getting late for me. So, until next time. Adieu.