Life; A Cumbersome Cloud at Times...

from the archives...28 October, 2008

I've been "getting my manuscript ready" for what feels like eons without moving ahead, but it just seems one excuse after another holds me back. Essentially, they are only excuses, but I really do need to prioritize my life right now. And my writing, much to my distaste, has taken a back burner. My family, my health and my kids have to come first, and for that I have no hard feelings.


So what does one do when your writing is put on hold?

As a writer, you want your literary works to be your entire life. It is how you title yourself when anyone asks, 'what do you do?' or 'tell me about yourself'. At least, in the back of your mind it is: "I am Tara...Awesome Writer PhD!" even though your actual job is what comes out, followed by anything else you feel obligated to list. But we all know, it is the writer pushing to stand forward, so bold and arrogant. It is, after all, the only chance for true arrogance when the rest of you, the actual you, isn't so in-your-face at all.


A writer wants to be submerged in their thoughts, facing a monitor or the pages of a notepad at all times; you want to suck in the essence of your character's thoughts and ideas, manipulate their lives into a story--a bit like a puppeteer, I suppose. Perhaps the control-freak side of me? (I'll ponder that another time, perhaps from a couch in a fancy office.) But so many times, it is all fiction, as much as the books you write are.


If only we were all Stephen King's and Nora Roberts's. But alas, so few writers--even good and published one's--do not make a living off their creative soul. So it is onto other things and life must continue around us.


In my case, some things do not. My house suffers the worst. The dishes practically cry from the sink, 'wash me!' and the laundry, well, let's just say I don't care how high the mountain gets or if we more than occasionally live out of the dryer; at least the priorities are there for everyone else. And, sorry, last night's lasagna pan (let's be realistic; more likely three night's ago...), but you'll just have to wait for Guide camp to finish, cookie sales to settle, school trips and homework and volunteering to end, and of course, my health to resolve when it rears it's head. Not to mention my job. Remember? The one that actually pays. Even then, the writing comes next in the line of priorities, after all of that and before the housework. It's the writing I have a hard time saying "no" to.


These are just my thoughts, my rant on waiting for life to catch up with my own set schedule, which is just never going to be wide enough to engulf all I want it to. With a sigh, I set the words of creativity aside with a promise that I will return. And to my loyal fans (oh, they are 'endless') the book will get published in time.


So, in lieux of preparing my manuscript in these few spare moments, here I sit, typing frantically at a blog...(about my writing)...and not working on the writing itself. Just doesn't make sense, does it?

But the dishes are now screeching.

And I ignore them still.

As I step Into the World of Publishing...

from the archives...27 May, 2008

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, mainly a result of avoiding the internet with the year of Girl Guide emails finally over, my first chance since September of not seeing 10-18 messages in the inbox, none of those related to writing.

 

Also, the time has come to self-publish so I have been a busy bee editing and polishing and perfecting a manuscript to ready for self-publishing. I have had mixed reviews on the subject. Some say it’s a waste of time and money; that I shouldn’t have to pay for my own book to get there. Others, excited to finally see one of my book’s in print.

I tend to side with the latter.

Call me crazy, maybe impatient, but I am having a hard time waiting for an agent to pick one of them up, though the submissions do continue from my end. I did come close, hearing back some positive feedback from one, hopes elevated then dashed when I received the dreaded, ‘it isn’t right for our agency’ letter.

No worse for wear, I plug away and move on to the next. In the meantime, until I can dedicate enough time to these submissions (more often than every few months) I will self-publish.

 

Just to see my name in print? Maybe. But more in hopes that it will be a stepping-stone to something bigger. My lack of writing credentials to fill up an author’s bio is evident with the one-liner of ‘mother, nurse, years of self taught writing experience’. It isn’t that bland, fired up much more, because that’s what we writer’s do, but it is bare bones under the blaze. So self-publishing may be part of my progressive work in that direction.

 

Of course, this all comes with the attached job of promoting one’s book. Ugh, the torturous thoughts. Wouldn’t it be easier if everyone just picked it up and said, ‘Wow, an instant Jane Austen’? Yes, but completely illogical. Another of my fantasy worlds. Oh, they are vast.

 

So off I go, to throw my characters lives into the hands of the public. Let’s see what they do with them, shall we?

Why Romance You Ask?

from the archives...9 February, 2008

I have ventured beyond my own expectations, begun many journeys I never thought I could through my writing. It began when I plunked myself down in front of an old hand me down computer and started to write a few notes for a short story idea I had. I didn’t know where it would go, how many pages, who the characters really were beyond demographics and one single scene that had been running through my mind. It turned into a novel sized book. The romance writing began somewhere else, somewhere a couple of years later.

My cousin read my second completed mystery novel; my second novel period-—very raw and with an inexperinced voice-—and wondered why I didn’t try writing more romance. The mystery was good, she’d said, but the very small romance line in the story came much stronger, much more easily. I think I had found my niche without even knowing it, and wouldn’t realize this until over a year later when I actually tried to do it.

I thought she was insane. I laughed at the comment. Romance? Me? Really? I’d not written, much less read, many romances in the last ten years at that point. Who does, really?...Old women, lonely single mothers, our mothers and grandmothers...come on, we’ve all scene the old Harlequin’s sitting on the bookshelf and dared to open them up, laugh, turn red and wonder to ourselves, ‘why would someone read that crap?’

There is a world out there I never knew existed, I’ll tell you that. And my mind is forever changed.

So I picked a few up. Some were smut, some written purely to see a sex scene in print, I’m sure--porno for women, my hubby calls it--and I could barely get through them. I have to say I was embarrassed for women everywhere.

Other writers, other stories, have come miles beyond the days of near-rape style sex scenes so elicit they overpowered the guts of the story. Some of them-—I can’t honestly say all because there is a load of crap in every genre of writing whether fiction or non, romance or not-—are good. Great even.

The writing has much improved, the storylines set in greater depth, sex on levels from barely mentionable to erotica. Take your pick. Fortunately for me, or so I think, I’ve always been a romantic at heart so I fit into the genre pretty well. (Just count me out of the erotica, or the religious for that matter, thank you very much).

But I didn’t stop there. I wrote two novels (‘throbbing manhoods’ and ‘heaving breasts’ gladly witheld) that were, for lack of a better expression, "romancy" and may dare to fit into the Harlequin section of the bookstore, though those have vastly expanded, too. I have written Chic-lit from a first person and witty perspective, and lingered a while on a darker side as influenced by my love for the Bronte's and classic gothic romance. I even set my head in the early 19th century for another.

When I look back to my first few books, I laugh. I laugh at the writing. But I love them. Ten novels and many short stories later, they still hold some of my favorite moments and characters. If nothing else, the feeling of finally getting down on paper some of my first thoughts and ideas, watching them develop, taking count of my growth as a writer in the meantime, drives me. I haven’t been at it long enough to call myself a "Jane Austen" or "Emily Bronte", perhaps never will, but I know I can make my way to a higher place eventually. And we get nowhere without dreaming.

All of my books say something about who I am as a person, a mother, a wife. A nurse, a writer, a woman. That’s where it counts. I love romance, am no longer afraid of it or the cliché’s and negative thoughts it brings in the eyes of many.

As Jane Austen once said, "Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery." Mine is dwelling with Jane’s.

"Far away in the sunshine are my highest inspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they may lead."

Lousia May Alcott